PARENTAL INVESTMENT THEORY - THE ROLE OF PAST INVESTMENT

The role of past investment in parental-care behaviour has often been controversial. Some researchers have argued that organisms basing present investment on past investment are committing the 'Concorde fallacy'. Others have incorporated life history theory to suggest that investing according to past investment is one component of investing according to expected future reproductive success: a parent can use past investment as well as other information, such as brood size, to make its optimal parental-investment decisions. Although parental-investment research is still in its infancy, the incorporation of life history theory suggests that the Concorde fallacy is a misleading concept.