Co-evolution of pre-play signaling and cooperation

A finite-population dynamic evolutionary model is presented, which shows that increasing the individual capacity of sending pre-play signals (without any pre-defined meaning), opens a route for cooperation. The population dynamics leads individuals to discriminate between different signals and react accordingly to the signals received. The proportion of time that the population spends in different states can be calculated analytically. We show that increasing the number of different signals benefits cooperative strategies, illustrating how cooperators may take profit from a diverse signaling portfolio to forecast future behaviors and avoid being cheated by defectors.