Does migration cost influence cooperation among success-driven individuals?

Migration as an important social factor has been recently considered in evolutionary games on graphs. However, the migration-related cost is largely ignored in previous works, which may indeed influence individual migration decision in human society. Here we propose a model of the success-driven migration with migration costs where individuals decide whether to migrate or not according to the migration cost and expected payoff. We consider two different calculation schemes for the migration cost, i.e., distance-dependent and distance-independent costs, and study their effects on the evolution of cooperation in the spatial prisoner’s dilemma, respectively. It is found that although the migration cost inhibits the migration of individuals, it does not necessarily lead to the suppression of cooperation. We explain the phenomenon by investigating the spatial patterns of cooperators and defectors. Interestingly, the curves of cooperation exhibit step structures and the corresponding heuristic analysis is provided. Our work complements previous studies and deepens the understanding regarding the success-driven migration on the evolution of cooperation.