Study Questions - Cooperation
Readings - chapter 11
Cooperation and Conflict - Chapter 12
1. Cooperative behaviors can evolve in several ways, through INDIVIDUAL selection. Describe how direct and indirect reciprocity can work to INCREASE individual fitness by helping others. Provide a real example consistent with each hypothesis.
2. Here's the grape video!
3. Cooperating all the time is not an "evolutionarily stable strategy" why?
4. Describe the adaptive feedback loop invovled in mutualistic interactions. Be sure to describe the fitness differentials among members of ONE species... why would those that interact with a mutualist have an adavantage over other members of their population that don't interact with mutualists?
5. Although kin selection is founded on the principle that it is adaptive to help relatives, sometimes it is adaptive to HURT realtives or members of your social group. When should it be advatageous for parents to abandon their offspring, or abort them? Provide an example.
6. Provide an example of sibling conflicts and describe the adaptive benefit of killing a sibling.
7. The IGF-II gene is imprinted differently in male and female mice. Explain these differences in gene activation in terms of different adaptative strategies of males and females.
8. Competition between species can be a selective pressure causing change in resource use. Why is this presumed to be a NEGATIVE effect (using a new resource). How can this suboptimal use of a new or different resource cause morphological change? Place this in the concepts of adaptive landscapes and gene frequencies.