  We found that a network-organized metapopulation of cooperators, defectors
and destructive agents playing the public goods game with mutations, can
collectively reach global synchronization or chimera states. Global
synchronization is accompanied by a collective periodic burst of cooperation,
whereas chimera states reflect the tendency of the networked metapopulation to
be fragmented in clusters of synchronous and incoherent bursts of cooperation.
Numerical simulations have shown that the system's dynamics alternates between
these two steady states through a first order transition. Depending on the
parameters determining the dynamical and topological properties, chimera states
with different numbers of coherent and incoherent clusters are observed. Our
results present the first systematic study of chimera states and their
characterization in the context of evolutionary game theory. This provides a
valuable insight into the details of their occurrence, extending the relevance
of such states to natural and social systems.

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems;Dynamical Systems;Chaotic Dynamics;Pattern Formation and Solitons