Stability, period and chaos of the evolutionary game strategy induced by time-delay and mutation feedback

In the classical evolutionary game theory, mutation is usually considered as a constant, however strategy mutation is affected by strategies in the real game process. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to study the effects of mutation feedback and time delays on strategy dynamics, where mutation is a linear feedback related to strategy. First, we construct a co-evolutionary game model with two time delays induced by mutation feedback and analyze the existence and stability of the equilibria of the non-time delay system. The conditions for the coexistence of the two strategies and the mutation rate are obtained. Second, Sotomayor’s theorem is used to explore the transcritical bifurcation of the system. Then, the existence of Hopf bifurcation is investigated by using feedback delay and payoff delay as bifurcation parameters in the time-delay system. Furthermore, we discuss the direction of the Hopf bifurcation, stability and periodic change of the periodic solution in detail. Finally, a series of numerical simulations are used to describe the theoretical analysis. The main results are as follows: (i) Mutation causes negative feedback to cooperative strategy. (ii) As the time delay increases, the stable equilibrium point becomes unstable, and which branches a stable limit cycle. When the time delay continues to increase sufficiently, the stable limit cycle becomes unstable and produces irregular oscillation and chaos. (iii) When the two time delays are large enough, the coexistence of the two strategies becomes that defective strategy is dominant, and the mutation rate also reaches the maximum.