Co-operation in tough times: Understanding the impact of habitat degradation on pair bonding - EOI Only

Explaining why unrelated individuals within a species co-operate with each other is a key challenge in evolutionary ecology. Co-operating comes with costs (e.g. reduced resources), and when individuals are unrelated it is not always clear what benefits exist to compensate these costs. Two of the main evolutionary theories proposed to account for cooperative behaviour between unrelated individuals are reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971) and mutualism (Boucher et al 1984). While mutualism (you do your thing, I'll do mine, and we're both better off) is well demonstrated empirically, reciprocity (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours later), has yet to receive the same support.