Organization of cooperation in fractal structures

Abstract It is known that the small-world structure constitutes sufficient conditions to sustain cooperation and thus enhances cooperation. On contrary, network with a very long average distance usually thought of as suppressing emergence In this paper we show fractal structure, which long, does not always play negative role in organization Compared regular networks, might even facilitate This mainly depends on existence locally compact clusters. The sparse inter-connection between these clusters constructs an asymmetric barrier defection strategy almost impossible cross, but has too small chance. More generally, need be standard fractal, such structures exist. turn, when typical absent, will also suppress cooperation, configuration obtained by diluting random tree-like network. Our findings clarify some contradictions previous studies, suggest both removing inserting links from/into can enhance