Cooperation Flashcards
Explain the term “inclusive fitness”
You can achieve full fitness (having a full copy of genes in the next generation) without producing your own offspring.
What is ‘kin selection’?
Kin selection occurs when an animal engages in self-sacrificial behaviour that benefits the genetic fitness of its relatives. Kin selection describes indirect benefits through helping relative to survive and reproduce, thus alters the lifetime costs and benefits for cooperative individuals.
Explain the term ‘direct fitness’
Number of offspring an individual produces.
Describe how female squirrels cooperate
Females pair up in colder weather and they’re usually closely related
What is Hamilton’s rule?
rB-C > 0
B = benefit to the recipient
C = Cost to the actor
r = Genetic relatedness
The more related the actor is to the recipient (i.e. the bigger r is), the bigger the cost can be
What is cooperative breeding?
foregoing your own reproduction to help a relative.
Give 2 examples of animals who partake in cooperative breeding.
Long tailed tits. (HATCHWELL ET AL.)
Meerkats.
Is promiscuity lower in cooperative or non-cooperative bird species?
Cooperative (relatedness is then higher in nests)
How is breeding by subordinates policed by dominant members in meerkats?
Infanticide and eviction (dominants an smell signs of pregnancy and evict subordinates).
Give 3 ways eusocial insects show cooperation.
Cooperative care of young
sterile castes
overlapping generations
What is haplodiploidy?
males develop from unfertilized eggs so are haploid (all genes come from the mother), females are diploid
What does hoplodiploidy in bees mean for female workers?
More benefit rearing sisters than own offspring as they get all of their father’s genes and 1/2 of mother’s, so they are more related to sisters than offspring.
What is ‘worker policing’ in bees?
Workers can lay eggs but they are rapidly removed, by the queen in some species or by other workers.
What is Hamilton’s rule?
rB-C>0
r= relatedness
B= benefit to recipient
C= cost to actor
