Managing ecological thresholds of a risky commons

Common resources are often overexploited and appear subject to critical transitions from one stable state to another antagonistic state. Many times resulting in tragedy of the commons (TOC)—exploitation of shared resources for personal gain/payoffs, leading to worse outcomes or extinction. An adequate response would be strategic interaction, such as inspection and punishment by institutions to avoid TOC. This strategic interaction is often coupled with dynamically changing common resources. However, effect of strategic interaction in complex, coupled socio-ecological systems is less studied. Here, we develop replicator equations using evolving games in which strategy and common resources co-evolve. We consider the shared commons as fish dynamics governed by the intrinsic growth rate, predation and harvesting. The joint dynamics exhibit an oscillatory TOC, revealing that institutions need to pay special attention to intrinsic growth rate and nonlinear interaction. Our research shows that the co-evolving system exhibits a broader range of dynamics when predation is present compared to the disengaged fishery system. We conclude that the usefulness, chances and challenges of modelling co-evolutionary games to create sustainable systems merit further research.