What is "reciprocal altruism"

n. (context biology English) Used in biology to describe the phenomenon of two animals acting in ways which mutually benefit one another.

In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. The concept was initially developed by Robert Trivers to explain the evolution of cooperation as instances of mutually altruistic acts. The concept is close to the strategy of " tit for tat" used in game theory.