BioConcepts

parental investmentelterliche Investition (ger.)

• An activity that increases the fitness of an organism's offspring at the expense of its own future chances of reproduction. (HWB)
  category parental care

  1972

  I first define parental investment as any investment by the parent in an individual offspring that increases the offspring’s chance of surviving (and hence reproductive success) at the cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring.

  Trivers, R.L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In: Campbell, B. (ed.). Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, 136-179: 139.