- offspring
- symbiotic partners
- colony members
- hosts
- parasites
- mutualists
- competitors through leakage or waste products
Energy allocation among maintenance, growth, storage, and reproduction is central to life-history theory; these uses compete for finite assimilated resources. (PubMed Central (PMC))
Operational definition
Allocation destination.
The movement of assimilated matter, stored chemical free energy, reducing equivalents, or costly biological products from the focal system into another living system.
Recipients may include:
- offspring;
- symbionts;
- colony members;
- hosts;
- parasites;
- mutualists;
- competitors.
The transfer may be adaptive, obligatory, incidental, or exploited by the recipient. Resource allocation among maintenance, growth, reproduction, and storage is a central life-history problem, while niche construction identifies biological work that alters future environmental conditions. (PubMed Central (PMC))