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. 2014 Feb 12;9(2):e88412. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088412

Moderate Intra-Group Bias Maximizes Cooperation on Interdependent Populations

Changbing Tang 1, Zhen Wang 2,3, Xiang Li 1,*
Editor: Matjaž Perc4
PMCID: PMC3922813  PMID: 24533084

Abstract

Evolutionary game theory on spatial structures has received increasing attention during the past decades. However, the majority of these achievements focuses on single and static population structures, which is not fully consistent with the fact that real structures are composed of many interactive groups. These groups are interdependent on each other and present dynamical features, in which individuals mimic the strategy of neighbors and switch their partnerships continually. It is however unclear how the dynamical and interdependent interactions among groups affect the evolution of collective behaviors. In this work, we employ the prisoner's dilemma game to investigate how the dynamics of structure influences cooperation on interdependent populations, where populations are represented by group structures. It is found that the more robust the links between cooperators (or the more fragile the links between cooperators and defectors), the more prevalent of cooperation. Furthermore, theoretical analysis shows that the intra-group bias can favor cooperation, which is only possible when individuals are likely to attach neighbors within the same group. Yet, interestingly, cooperation can be even inhibited for large intra-group bias, allowing the moderate intra-group bias maximizes the cooperation level.

Introduction

Cooperation is a widely observed phenomenon in social science, biology and economics [1], [2]. However, cooperative behavior apparently contradicts the natural selection [3]: Selfish players always have a higher average fitness than that of cooperators, since selfish players enjoy the benefits from the cooperation of others without associated costs. Therefore, it has fascinated many interests from natural and social scientists to understand the emergence and the stability of cooperation.

Within the interdisciplinary field of evolutionary game theory, this puzzle benefits from techniques of biology, economy, computer sciences, and physics [4], [5]. As a metaphor, the prisoner's dilemma (PD) game has attracted great attention in both theoretical and experimental studies to investigate the evolution of cooperation [6]–[12]. In a typical PD game, two players simultaneously decide whether they act as a cooperator (Inline graphic) or a defector (Inline graphic). Inline graphics are willing to engage in cooperative tasks, while Inline graphics prefer not to. They will receive the reward, Inline graphic, if both cooperate, and the punishment, Inline graphic, if both defect. However, if one player defects while the other decides to cooperate, the former will get the temptation, Inline graphic, while the latter will get the sucker's payoff, Inline graphic. Namely, the local interaction between Inline graphic and Inline graphic is given by the following payoff matrix:

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e011.jpg (1)

where these payoffs satisfy Inline graphic and Inline graphic. It is obvious that players prefer to defect if they wish to maximize their own payoffs, whatever the opponent's decision.

Various mechanisms to support the evolution of cooperation have been identified recently [13]–[18], such as direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, group selection and network reciprocity [19]. The most famous context is spatial games introduced by Nowak and May [20], where players are arranged on a spatially structured population and interact with their neighbors only. It is shown that cooperators could survive by means of forming compact clusters, which minimize the exploitation of defectors. In the line of this seminal achievement, the role of spatial game and its underlying promoted mechanisms in evolutionary games have been intensively explored, such as the mobility of players [21]–[23], different evolutionary time scales [24]–[27], social diversity [28], [29], heterogeneous ability and aspiration [30], [31] (for comprehensive reviews refer to Ref. [32]).

Though large amounts of work upon spatial reciprocity are available, the main attention remains in an isolated and single structure. In human societies, empirical evidences have shown that the realistic structures are composed of many interactive groups, which interact with each other over time [33]–[40]. In this context, the evolution behavior traits have been considered underlying the interdependent populations, where populations are represented by group structures to account for different social types. Note that this framework is similar with previous studies that have addressed the structure on interdependent networks, in the sense that the success of one node in a given group not only depends on the nodes in the same group, but also replies on the states of other nodes in other groups. Taking some examples more specifically, in a recent paper [41], where the biased utility function on interdependent networks were implemented, it was shown that the stronger the bias in the utility function, the higher the level of public cooperation. While in [42], a replicator such as evolutionary game dynamics took place on interdependent populations, cooperative behaviors are fixed on the system (even if the system is well-mixed). Moreover, it was also a remarkable hint that only an intermediate density of sufficiently strong interactions between groups could lead the optimal resolution of social dilemmas [43], [44].

Aside from the effect of spatial structure and its various promoted mechanisms, the co-evolution of game models also attracts numerous attention [45]–[52], which not only reflects the evolving of strategies over time, but also characterizes the adaptive development of topologies and/or update rules. In particular, the interdependent populations in our real social life are dynamical and changing over time. Besides, the essence of evolutionary game theory on interdependent populations remains unclear, especially for the question how the structure of dynamical and interdependent populations affects the evolution of cooperation. Therefore, we introduce an intra-group bias based rewiring probability, and focus on co-evolution of strategy and structure to investigate the evolution of cooperation on interdependent populations. Within the fast rewiring process, we derive a simple rule quantitatively revealing how the link breaking probability and intra-group bias are chosen to stabilize cooperation. Interestingly, though cooperation is favored by intra-group bias conditionally, it is precluded for a large intra-group bias, which uncovers that the moderate intra-group bias maximizes the cooperation level.

Model and Analysis

2.1 Model

We consider the co-evolution of strategy and topology structure of the PD game. Each player can be one of the two strategies, either cooperation Inline graphic or defection Inline graphic, where Inline graphics incur a cost Inline graphic and provide a benefit Inline graphic to its opponent (Inline graphic), while Inline graphics neither incur costs nor provide benefits. The local interaction between Inline graphic and Inline graphic is given by the payoff matrix Inline graphic, which is a simplified version of Eq. (1):

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e024.jpg (2)

Initially, the whole population is located at interdependent populations, which consists of Group-1 and Group-2 (see Fig. 1). Each Group-Inline graphic (Inline graphic) is represented by a network structure with size Inline graphic, leading to the size of total population Inline graphic. The average degree of Group-Inline graphic is Inline graphic, where Inline graphic is the total number of links in Group-Inline graphic. Assume Inline graphic, which implies that each player has a limited number of neighbors compared with the population size of the group. Denote the number of links connecting two nodes Inline graphic intra-group interactions as Inline graphic (Inline graphic), while the number of links connecting two nodes Inline graphic inter-group interactions as Inline graphic (or Inline graphic). Then, the total number of links is Inline graphic.

Figure 1. The schematic presentation for the linking adjustment between interdependent populations.

Figure 1

Two types of players, Inline graphic and Inline graphic, are arranged on the nodes of two interactive groups: Group-Inline graphic and Group-Inline graphic, respectively. If the dashed link is selected in the topological evolution, it will be broken off with probability Inline graphic. If the dashed link is broken, one of the two players (Inline graphic or Inline graphic) occupying the two extremes of the broken link is selected randomly. Subsequently, the selected player (marked by red circle) switches to another player who is not its current neighbor: it will choose the player in its own group with probability Inline graphic, and choose the player in the other group with probability Inline graphic.

At each time step, the event of updating strategy takes place with probability Inline graphic, otherwise link adjustment happens with probability Inline graphic. Here, Inline graphic governs the dynamical timescales between strategy updating and topology evolution.

For the strategy updating, we adopt the Fermi dynamics [53], [54] on interdependent populations. Each player is allowed to play with all its current neighbours, and obtains an accumulated payoff. Player Inline graphic in the whole population is selected at random, subsequently player Inline graphic is selected among Inline graphic's current neighbors. Then, the strategy of focal player Inline graphic tries to replace that of neighbor Inline graphic with probability Inline graphic, where Inline graphic represents the total payoff of player Inline graphic (Inline graphic is the payoff of player Inline graphic obtained from Group-Inline graphic). Inline graphic denotes the imitation intensity, measuring how strongly the imitation behavior depends on the payoff difference [55]. In this work, we consider the weak selection (i.e., Inline graphic), i.e., one phenotype is slightly advantageous, and the effects of payoff differences are small, such that the evolutionary dynamics are mainly driven by random fluctuations.

For the linking dynamics, each link is assigned a label Inline graphic as its name. Assume players will leave or break interactions when they dissatisfy with the current situations. In fact, the social interactions between players in evolve with time based on aspiration payoff [30], [31], reputation [56], [57], and other mechanisms [49], [51]. To characterize the dynamics of structure with various kinds of relationship, we introduce probability Inline graphic to estimate whether the Inline graphic-type link is broken. At each time of linking dynamics, link Inline graphic of type Inline graphic is selected from the whole interdependent populations at random (Inline graphic, Inline graphic). With probability Inline graphic, the selected link Inline graphic remains unchanged, otherwise, the selected link is broken. If the link is broken, then one node is selected randomly from the two, and it tries to find another partner to connect with. With probability Inline graphic, the neighbor is only selected within the same group, otherwise, the potential neighbor is chosen from the other group (see Fig. 1). Here, Inline graphic is the intra-group attaching bias between two interactive groups, which reflects the propensity to rewire neighbors via intra-group interactions.

It is worth noting that Inline graphic is time-invariant and describes an intrinsic quantity of the linking dynamics. It is shown that the duration time of Inline graphic link obeys the geometric distribution with parameter Inline graphic [58], [59]. Therefore, the inverse of Inline graphic can be taken as the the average interaction rate between Inline graphic and Inline graphic. Besides, the total number of links remains constant during the linking dynamics of the interdependent populations as in [24], [47].

2.2 Evolutionary dynamics on interdependent populations

Denoted the types of link Inline graphic as Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic. Then, the dynamics of Inline graphic is captured by a Markov chain with transition matrix Inline graphic, whose entry Inline graphic is the transition probability that link Inline graphic of type Inline graphic transforms to link Inline graphic of type Inline graphic. The transition matrix of such a Markov chain is given by Inline graphic (See Text S1).

Since the Markov chain is irreducible and aperiodic, there exists a unique stationary distribution Inline graphic determined by equation Inline graphic [58],

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e105.jpg (3)

where Inline graphic indicates the Kronecker delta, Inline graphic is the frequency of strategy Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic, and Inline graphic is the normalization factor. The normalized stationary distribution Inline graphic represents the fraction of Inline graphic links in the whole population. Therefore, the average number of Inline graphic links is Inline graphic.

In the case of a fast rewiring process, i.e., Inline graphic, the strategy updating occurs less frequently than linking adjustment [24], [25], and the structure of groups is almost in the stationary state with the distribution described by Eq. (3) when the strategy evolution occurs. In this case, the average fitness function of strategies Inline graphic and Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic is given by

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e119.jpg (4)

where Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, and

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e124.jpg (5)

is a modified payoff matrix of Eq. (2), whose payoff entry is rescaled by the inverse of the breaking probability. Note that the first term in the bracket of Eq. (4) represents the payoff obtained Inline graphic interactions in the same group, while the second term of Eq. (4) represents the payoff obtained Inline graphic interactions belonging to different groups. Therefore, the payoff of each player in the interdependent populations relies on the neighbors in not only the same group but also the other group.

Besides, as shown in Fig. 2, the change of Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic is due to the pairwise comparison between the focal player Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic and player Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic (or Group-Inline graphic), which yields the transition probabilities

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e134.jpg (6)

where Inline graphic is the transition probability caused by the pairwise comparison occurring in the same group, while Inline graphic is the transition probability caused by the pairwise comparison occurring in different groups.

Figure 2. An illustrative transition probability of interdependent populations.

Figure 2

The left: probability that the number of Inline graphic players in Group-Inline graphic increases from Inline graphic to Inline graphic is Inline graphic, which is caused by a player Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic (a) (or Group-Inline graphic (b)) replacing a player Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic. The right: probability that the number of Inline graphic players in Group-Inline graphic decreases from Inline graphic to Inline graphic is Inline graphic, which is caused by a player Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic replaced by a player Inline graphic in Group-Inline graphic (c) (or Group-Inline graphic (d)).

For a large population, the stochastic process can be well approximated by a set of stochastic differential equations referring to Langevin dynamics [60]. To the pairwise comparison process occurring on interdependent populations, the Langevin dynamics yields Inline graphic, where Inline graphic, Inline graphic is the effective terms, and Inline graphic is the uncorrelated Gaussian noise. Since Inline graphic, the stochastic term vanishes [61], [62], which leads to

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e162.jpg (7)

Especially, when Inline graphic, the strategy evolution degenerates to an extension of the replicator dynamics, which yields

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e164.jpg (8)

where Inline graphic is a constant factor influencing the timescale only. Besides, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic. Here, we assume Inline graphic for simplicity without loss of generality, and the numerical results for Inline graphic are consistent with this simplification.

Note that the unit square Inline graphic is the invariant set of 2-D plane. From Eq. (8), we obtain three possible equilibria Inline graphic, Inline graphic, and Inline graphic (Inline graphic). For such three equilibria, the Jacobian matrix Inline graphic of (8) has the form

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e179.jpg

where Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic. The corresponding eigenvalues of Jacobian matrix Inline graphic at Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Eigenvalues of Jacobin matrix Inline graphic at Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic.

Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic
Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic
Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic

When Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic, which implies that the eigenvalues of Jacobian matrix Inline graphic are both negative for Inline graphic; Inline graphic and Inline graphic, which implies that both the the eigenvalues of Jacobian matrix Inline graphic are negative for Inline graphic. Therefore, both Inline graphic and Inline graphic are stable. For the interior equilibrium Inline graphic, when Inline graphic, the eigenvalues of Jacobian matrix Inline graphic are both positive for Inline graphic and Inline graphic, which indicates that the eigenvalues of Jacobian matrix Inline graphic are positive for Inline graphic. Therefore, when Inline graphic Inline graphic, Inline graphic is an unstable equilibrium.

Results

Let us now consider how the co-evolution of strategy and link dynamics affects cooperation on the interdependent populations. When Inline graphic and Inline graphic (Inline graphic), the eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix in Eq. (8) are negative for both Inline graphic and Inline graphic, yet positive for Inline graphic. Thus, both Inline graphic and Inline graphic are stable, and Inline graphic is unstable, which leads to the final state converging to Inline graphic or Inline graphic. Namely, Eq. (8) in the whole group is composed of all-Inline graphic (Inline graphic) or all-Inline graphic (Inline graphic) (See Fig. 3). On the other hand, when Inline graphic, Inline graphic becomes a saddle-point. Therefore, strategies Inline graphic and Inline graphic are bistable on the interdependent populations.

Figure 3. Phase portrait of Eq. (5) under weak selection.

Figure 3

The direction of the velocity field is denoted by arrows. We set Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, and Inline graphic. Under the condition Inline graphic and Inline graphic (Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic), the velocity field converges to the corner equilibrium Inline graphic or Inline graphic independent of the initialization.

Besides, the equilibrium Inline graphic determines the attraction basin of cooperation Inline graphic. If the initial condition, Inline graphic, is more than the critical value of Inline graphic (i.e., Inline graphic and Inline graphic), then system (8) converges to all-Inline graphic; otherwise, it reaches all-Inline graphic. The effect of initialization on the frequency of strategy Inline graphic in both groups is shown in Fig. 4. In other words, the PD game with link dynamics corresponds to a coordination game in well-mixed populations, where both cooperation and defection are best replies to themselves [63]. Thus, cooperation is stable only when

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e266.jpg (9)

Figure 4. Simultaneous time-evolution of the frequency of cooperator in Group-Inline graphic and Group-Inline graphic under weak selection.

Figure 4

Initially, strategy Inline graphic is randomly distributed in Group-Inline graphic and Group-Inline graphic. For all plots, we set Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic. (a) When Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic and Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic, Eq. (5) converges to the state of all-Inline graphic independent of the initialization. (b) When Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic, but Inline graphic Inline graphic Inline graphic, Eq. (5) converges to the state of all-Inline graphic.

Note that Eq. (9) is necessary for emerging cooperation, namely, the co-evolution of strategy and link dynamics can favor cooperation if the benefit-to-cost ratio Inline graphic exceeds Inline graphic (Inline graphic). This condition is intuitive: the critical benefit-to-cost ratio is a decreasing function of Inline graphic but an increasing function of Inline graphic. Indeed, the evolution of cooperation is promoted if Inline graphic links are more fragile than Inline graphic links, which coincides with the results in [24], [64]. Besides, quantity Inline graphic measures the propensity for cooperators to form clusters, and Inline graphic characterizes the fragility ratio between Inline graphic link and Inline graphic link. Decreasing Inline graphic allows cooperators to spread more effectively [22]. In particular, when Inline graphic, a cooperator is more likely to play with cooperators rather than defectors, and easier to form clusters. In this sense, Inline graphic illustrates how likely a cooperator is to interact with a cooperator.

More interestingly, there exists a lower bound of the intra-group bias between two groups for emerging cooperation. The intra-group bias between two groups hinders the invasion of defectors on the single group, thereby influences the evolution of cooperation. When the value of Inline graphic, the interior equilibrium becomes a saddle point. Thus, small value of Inline graphic is excluded to the model of coordination game, and the cooperation will never emerges when Inline graphic is smaller than the critical value Inline graphic. For instance, with a small value of Inline graphic, a defector on Group-Inline graphic might take advantage from the vicinity of cooperators on Group-Inline graphic, because the corresponding interactions on Group-Inline graphic may supply enough resource to be exploited, which results in the prosperous of defection. On the other hand, big intra-group bias also ignores the inter-group interactions between two interdependent groups. In this way, increasing Inline graphic narrows the attraction basin of cooperation Inline graphic, and makes it difficult for cooperation to gain a foothold in the population. Therefore, the intra-group bias favors the cooperation for players are likely to switching to attach neighbors within the same group. However, too large intra-group bias hinders the prosperity of cooperation, allowing the moderate intra-group bias maximizes the cooperation level (See Fig. 5).

Figure 5. Final fraction of cooperators as a function of the intra-group bias Inline graphic.

Figure 5

We set Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic. The analytical value of Inline graphic, which is marked out by red arrow in the plot. Each data point is averaged over Inline graphic independent runs, and in each realization, we set Inline graphic time steps to ensure the evolution of dynamics in steady states. It is shown that there exists a moderate intra-group bias leading to maximum cooperation level in the whole populations.

Till now, we have shown a simple rule telling how cooperation emerges with linking dynamics. Although, condition (9) guarantees the necessity of emerging cooperation, it's not sufficient to make cooperation advantageous. To make cooperators gain a foothold in the population of coordination game, the initial frequency of cooperators in the whole group should exceeds the unstable interior fixed point, which equals

graphic file with name pone.0088412.e339.jpg (10)

Similarly, Inline graphic is a decreasing function of Inline graphic and an increasing function of Inline graphic. Thus, decreasing Inline graphic and increasing Inline graphic enlarges the attraction basin of cooperation Inline graphic, and makes it easier for cooperation thrives. Fig. 6 shows that the critical value of unstable interior fixed point Inline graphic increases with increasing Inline graphic, i.e. a larger Inline graphic leads to the larger Inline graphic, which makes the flourishing of cooperation more difficult. Increasing the value of Inline graphic to Inline graphic, cooperators are never advantageous compared to defectors. Thus, cooperators are never favored by selection. Besides, the critical unstable interior fixed point Inline graphic decreases with increase of Inline graphic (see Fig. 7), i.e., a larger Inline graphic leads to the smaller Inline graphic, which is beneficial to the flourishing of cooperation. Contrarily, a smaller Inline graphic prevents the flourishing of cooperation. Specially, when decreases Inline graphic to Inline graphic, cooperators are never advantageous compared to defectors.

Figure 6. Final fraction of cooperators as a function of initial fraction of cooperators with different Inline graphic.

Figure 6

According to Eq. (8), we obtain that when Inline graphic, the analytical results of Inline graphic respectively, which are marked out by arrows in the plot. For all the three line in the plot, we set Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic. The simulation results show that the initial frequency of cooperators Inline graphic increases with increasing of Inline graphic. Large Inline graphic narrows the attraction basin of cooperation, which makes the flourishing of cooperation difficult.

Figure 7. Final fraction of cooperators as a function of initial fraction of cooperators with different Inline graphic.

Figure 7

According to Eq. (8), we obtain that when Inline graphic, the analytical results of Inline graphic respectively, which are marked out by arrows in the plot. For all the three line in the plot, we set Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic, Inline graphic and Inline graphic. The simulation results show that the initial frequency of cooperators Inline graphic decreases with increasing of Inline graphic, i.e., large Inline graphic enlarges the attraction basin of cooperation and promotes the flourishing of cooperation.

Conclusions

To sum up, we have established a microscopic model on the co-evolutionary dynamics of cooperation and interdependent populations. Under the assumption of fast structure evolving, we analytically arrived in the macro-dynamics at the population level: an extended replicator equation which incorporates both the interactions of groups and the strategy evolution. Based on this extended equation, it is shown that the less the fragile cooperator-cooperator links (or the more the fragile cooperator-defector links), the easier the emergence of cooperation. This result is consistent with previous findings that assortments of cooperators are likely to invade a defector population and escape from the exploitation of defector mutants [24], [25], [47], which paves the way for both emergence and stabilization of cooperation.

Interestingly, we have revealed that the dynamical interactions on interdependent populations can greatly affect the evolution of cooperation: cooperation can only emerge when intra-group bias is big enough. This is intuitive in the sense that intra-group bias can lead to cooperation [35], [36], which indicates that it might be more likely to establish neighbors within the same group. However, counterintuitive results also arise: it is unlikely that the more possible individuals establishing neighbors within the same group, the higher cooperation level is. In fact, too large intra-group switching bias inhibits cooperation [42], [43]. This reminds us with the migration effect: Neither too large nor too small mutation rate benefits cooperation. Thus, it would be beneficial for cooperators to move from time to time in order to hunt/establish a paradise to live, since this accidental moving can help the cooperators to escape from the nasty environment consisting of mainly defectors. Yet large migration rates make the population approximately well-mixed destroying the cooperation clustering, which deters cooperation. The switching rate of attaching neighbors outside the group can be viewed as the migration rate, thus leads to moderate switching rate maximizing cooperation. Our work shed light on how the dynamic of interdependent have an impact on the cooperation. This insight might also be constructive to other collective behaviors such as swarming and coordination and opinion formation. Works along those lines are in progress.

Supporting Information

Text S1

Embedded Markov chain approximation for linking dynamics.

(PDF)

Acknowledgments

We thanks B. Wu and J.B. Wang for help in preparing the manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to help improve this paper.

Funding Statement

This work was partly supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development Program (No. 2010CB731403), the National Natural Science Foundation (No. 61273223), the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20120071110029) and the Key Project of National Social Science Fund (No. 12&ZD18) of China. C.B.T. also acknowledges the financial support by the Academic New Artist Ministry of Education Doctoral Post Graduate (No. JFH1232003) of China. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Supplementary Materials

Text S1

Embedded Markov chain approximation for linking dynamics.

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