Lecture 12 - Cooperation

Question 1

What did Darwin postulate about cooperation?

Answer 1

With social insects, selection has been applied to the family, not the individual.

Question 2

What is cooperation defined as?

Answer 2

Any behaviour that increases the fitness of the recipient.

Question 3

What is altruism?

Answer 3

An act that has a fitness benefit for the recipient, but no fitness benefit for the actor.

Question 4

What does it mean if a mutualistic benefit is asymmetrical?

Answer 4

One individual has a greater benefit than the other.

Question 5

Describe altruism in vampire bats.

Answer 5

Hunt large mammals and feed on their blood.

In roosts, individuals that have not successfully found prey help one another.

Question 6

Describe altruism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Answer 6

Some individuals undergo programmed death (apoptosis), releasing nutrients into the population.

Question 7

Who proposed the Kin Selection Theory?

Answer 7

Bill Hamilton (1964)

Question 8

Give the equation for inclusive fitness.

Answer 8

Inclusive fitness = Direct fitness + Indirect fitness

Question 9

What is direct fitness?

Answer 9

The component of personal fitness, due to the behaviour of the individual itself.

Question 10

What is indirect fitness?

Answer 10

Made up of all of the offspring of neighbours that can be attributed to its own behaviour.

Question 11

What does an actor accrue from helping a genetically similar relative?

Answer 11

Indirect fitness

Question 12

When is an altruistic act able to spread through a population?

Answer 12

When

Benefit to the recipient x Relatedness between altruist and those gaining benefit [is greater than] cost to the altruist.

Question 13

What is the coefficient of relatedness between a mother and offspring?

Answer 13

1/2

Question 14

What is the coefficient of relatedness between full siblings?

Answer 14

1/2

Question 15

What is the equation for the coefficient of relatedness?

Answer 15

r = (1/2)^n

Where n = connection removed from self.

Question 16

What is haplodiploidy?

Answer 16

• all males haploid

- all females diploid

Question 17

In bees, how related are fathers and sons?

Answer 17

100% related

Question 18

In bees, how related are workers to their mother (queen)?

Answer 18

50% related

Question 19

What is the relatedness between sisters in a bee colony?

Answer 19

75%

Question 20

True or false:

Female bees are more related to their offspring than they are their sisters?

Answer 20

FALSE.

Female bees are 75% related to their sisters, and 50% related to their offspring.

Question 21

What was Hamilton’s argument for altruism in eusocial bees?

Answer 21

Females maximise their inclusive fitness by investing in the production of sisters in the colony, as they are more related to sisters than their own offspring.

Question 22

Who proposed the Game Theory?

Answer 22

Von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944)

Question 23

What is Game Theory?

Answer 23

A mathematical framework for understanding cooperation; how cooperative entities can overcome the obvious fitness and payoff disadvantages and persist in the face of cheating and exploitation.

Question 24

Describe the work of Maynard Smith and Price (1973).

Answer 24

Related the economic concept of payoff function with evolutionary fitness.

Question 25

What is an evolutionarily stable strategy?

Answer 25

A strategy which, if adopted by a population in a given environment, cannot be invaded by any alternative strategy that is initially rare.