  Productive societies feature high levels of cooperation and strong
connections between individuals. Public Goods Games (PGGs) are frequently used
to study the development of social connections and cooperative behavior in
model societies. In such games, contributions to the public good are made only
by cooperators, while all players, including defectors, can reap public goods
benefits. Classic results of game theory show that mutual defection, as opposed
to cooperation, is the Nash Equilibrium of PGGs in well-mixed populations,
where each player interacts with all others. In this paper, we explore the
coevolutionary dynamics of a low information public goods game on a network
without spatial constraints in which players adapt to their environment in
order to increase individual payoffs. Players adapt by changing their
strategies, either to cooperate or to defect, and by altering their social
connections. We find that even if players do not know other players' strategies
and connectivity, cooperation can arise and persist despite large short-term
fluctuations.

Physics and Society;Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems;Populations and Evolution