Directed Reciprocation Definition

Why might a social behavior reduce an animal's short-term fitness but boost its life-time fitness? This could arise in cases of ‘directed reciprocation’, where the beneficiary of the behavior returns the favor at some point in the future (Sachs et al. 2004). By performing the behavior, and suffering the short-term cost, the animal thus ensures (or raises the chance) that it will receive return benefits in the future. Similarly, in symbioses between members of different species, it may pay an organism to sacrifice resources for the benefit of a symbiont with which it has a long-term relationship, as its long-term welfare may be heavily dependent on the symbiont's