Overlapping generations can promote altruistic behavior.

Abstract

We use an inclusive fitness model to study the evolution of altruism in a patch-structured population in which there is positive probability of breeder survival from one generation to the next. We find first that breeder survival promotes altruism and second that there is a marked difference between benefits of fecundity and benefits of survival. Under the first altruism is more strongly favored, and under the second altruism is less strongly favored than in a randomly mixing population.