Kin Recognition Flashcards
(16 cards)
What is kin recognition?
The ability of animals to discriminate between relatives and non-relatives.
Why do animals avoid mating with close relatives?
To reduce inbreeding, which decreases offspring fitness.
Why do animals cooperate with close relatives?
To maximize inclusive fitness.
What are environmental cues in kin recognition?
Simple rules based on the time or place of interactions.
Give an example of environmental cues related to parental care.
Treat anyone in the nest as kin.
This usually leads to individuals caring for their own offspring but can ignore if placed outside the nest and accept other offspring.
Give an example of environmental cues related to cooperative breeding.
Treat anyone in the natal area as kin.
Helpers are usually retained offspring, and help is typically directed at close kin.
What is a reliable kin recognition scenario?
When individuals encountered in a certain environment are likely to be close kin.
What is an unreliable kin recognition scenario?
When a nest, group, or local area contains a mix of non-kin and kin of different degrees of relatedness.
What are phenotypic cues?
Cues that can be entirely genetic or learned from the environment.
What is an example of acoustic phenotypic cues?
Birds learn vocal cues from parents in the nest.
What is an example of chemical phenotypic cues?
Compounds rub off the nest onto insects to form colony odor cues.
What is familiarity in kin recognition?
Remembering phenotypes of those raised with you, learned during early development.
What is phenotypic matching?
Phenotypic similarity correlates with genetic similarity.
What are green beards in kin recognition?
Sharing a phenotypic trait indicates kinship.
How do phenotypic cues differ from environmental cues?
Phenotypic cues can be recognized outside of the shared environment.
What is the Damarland mole-rat known for?
Being a cooperative breeder with pair breeding and sterile helpers (adult offspring of the breeding pair).
