Kinship And Altruism

Question 1

Discriminating kin examples: associations in time and space, familiarity, phenotype matching,
Recognition alleles

Answer 1

Associations in time and space: eg location, exploited by the cuckoo

Familiarity: communal nests

Phenotype matching: cascade frog tadpoles - learned template - prefer to associate with siblings even when reared apart

Recognition alleles: genetic template - 1) phenotypic marker 2) ability to recognise marker 3) helpful behaviour towards bearers of marker

Question 2

Reciprocal altruism examples

Answer 2

Vampire bats donating blood to conspecifics

Predator inspection visits by sticklebacks

Lionesses defend pride against intruders

Food giving in cotton-top tamarin monkeys - more likely to give food to conspecific than one who does not return favour and ones with good altruistic reputation (Hauser et al. 2003)

Question 3

Altruistic behaviour selective advantage example

Answer 3

Black-backed jackets are able to read more pups as the number of helpers increases