BIOL 459 - FINAL 2025/26 EXAM QUESTIONS WITH
COMPLETE SOLUTIONS.
what is a social behaviour? Answer - not indicating intent and thoughts of the
animals, it just happens
effects on actor and recipient:
what constitutes a cooperative behaviour? Answer - cooperative is when the
interest of fitness of the two indivs is the same
what are the four types of intraspecific interactions? who benefits, who is
harmed for each? Answer - 1. mutualism: good for both
2. altruistic: good for recipient but not actor
3. selfish: good for actor bad for recipient
4. spiteful: bad for both
what are the five main explanations for why cooperative behaviour evovles?
Answer - 1. Kin selection: they are related so of course they want to benefit
both
2. Bi-product: might be cooperation that arises as a by-product of a selfish act.
one organisms is doing a selfish act and it accidentally helps the other, but
really the selfish act is beign selected for.
3. Reciprocity: things like recirprocal altruism, where there be some return at a
future date, trust or promise that the recipient will reiceve of eual or greater
value in the future.
,4. Enforcement: not exactly cooperation but instead coercion happening,
punishment and cheating. if they cheat maybe there is punishment if they find
out, or rewards for cooperation.
5. Group selection: mayeb... hard to find lots of examples, rare and under very
specific conditions
what is diplodiploidy? Answer - 2n, regular meiosis...sex chromosmes
determine sex
what is haplodiploidy? Answer - amount go chromsomes determines sex..
be able to calculate the coefficient of relatedness for a diplodiploid family (as
far out as first cousins) Answer - ...
what is meant by inclusive fitness? Answer - kin selection:
direct fitnes = gene copies passed by oyurself
Indirect ftness: gene copies passed by relatives
inclusive = direct fitness + indirect fitness
sometimes mor important or as important as indirect fitness. might see some
organisms decrease there own fitness to increase their relatives fitness.
chapter 15 Answer -
what are the components of inclusive fitness? Answer - direct fitness + indirect
fitness.??
what is Hamilton's rule? Answer - tells you when kin selection matter most?
the less therelationship the more benfit there has to be to overcome the cost...
go over this...
,turkery example?
why do animals give alarm calls? Answer - 1. signal to the predaote: make
future attacks less likely
2. reduce predator success
3. signal to conspecifics:increase predation risk for sender, benefits recivers.
they are drawing attention to themself.
4.one way to recognize relatives
in (Krakauer, 2005), why are turkeys displaying in pairs? what does the
subordinate male have to gain? how did they demonstrate this? Answer -
Quantitiative test of hamiltons rules
the two males are forming females together, one male is domninant over the
other and gets all the mating,
Krauker though its kin selected so they tested hamiltons rule. they were 42%
related. theydid the math and it is supported that the benefit is greater than
the cost of having its ownoffsrping.
how do individual animals recognize kin? Answer - dont necessarliy have to
recognize it, but they are slected to act towards it.
1. social recognition: species, gender, social, indivdual, kin; either recognizing
indivs of species or of gender, another level is recognizng indivs in your social
group, another level is recognizing certain indivs, this is most likley th emsot
important type in sharing social behaviour in mammals and birds, kin
recognition is another type of social recognition, distinushing relatives fromnon
relative.
2. condition vs. fixed strtegies:
-condition involves kin discrimition, recognizing and being involved with how
they behave towards a certain indivdual is determined by how they are related
to the,. if they are sister thy behave one wy or the other.
, -fixed: they have fixed behaviour whether they are realted or not. likley
because they either dont recognize kin, or because they are always
encountering kin, everyone around them is related.
1. bheaviours may be affectd by average relatedness of indivuals-
conditional..??
2. low dispersal = higher average relatedness. fixed..
why might kin recognition be unnecessary for kin selection to occur? Answer -
dont assume that it has to be about whether or not they can actually tell if
someone is your brother or not, if it is likley that everyone is your brother thn
selection will favour altruism.
as long as selectiona cts on it, it doesnt matter if they can actuall recognize kin
what is the green beard effect? Answer - two characters in a linakge
disequlibrium,may be because they are on the same chromomse, or evolution
just causes it. but one is signaling one thing and the other singals another. two
loci in disagreement with each other.
what is the green beard in fire ants? Answer - multiple queens per nest
Gp-9 locus - green beard gene
Polygene queens =multiple heterozygous Bb
they thought all the queens are heterozygous, you would epxect this to be the
opposite. this is because homozygous for the recessive allele indivs die really
early and do not make it to adulthood. any BB started to reproduce would likly
be killed by workers. its thought that little b alleles owuld induce the killing of
queeens that are homozygous. they think this because of green beard effect
they can smell it and sense out the ones that dont have it and th ebb are
aggressive and kill the ones that dont have it.
phenotypic thing causes to act on their behaviour. discriminating on the gene
level
COMPLETE SOLUTIONS.
what is a social behaviour? Answer - not indicating intent and thoughts of the
animals, it just happens
effects on actor and recipient:
what constitutes a cooperative behaviour? Answer - cooperative is when the
interest of fitness of the two indivs is the same
what are the four types of intraspecific interactions? who benefits, who is
harmed for each? Answer - 1. mutualism: good for both
2. altruistic: good for recipient but not actor
3. selfish: good for actor bad for recipient
4. spiteful: bad for both
what are the five main explanations for why cooperative behaviour evovles?
Answer - 1. Kin selection: they are related so of course they want to benefit
both
2. Bi-product: might be cooperation that arises as a by-product of a selfish act.
one organisms is doing a selfish act and it accidentally helps the other, but
really the selfish act is beign selected for.
3. Reciprocity: things like recirprocal altruism, where there be some return at a
future date, trust or promise that the recipient will reiceve of eual or greater
value in the future.
,4. Enforcement: not exactly cooperation but instead coercion happening,
punishment and cheating. if they cheat maybe there is punishment if they find
out, or rewards for cooperation.
5. Group selection: mayeb... hard to find lots of examples, rare and under very
specific conditions
what is diplodiploidy? Answer - 2n, regular meiosis...sex chromosmes
determine sex
what is haplodiploidy? Answer - amount go chromsomes determines sex..
be able to calculate the coefficient of relatedness for a diplodiploid family (as
far out as first cousins) Answer - ...
what is meant by inclusive fitness? Answer - kin selection:
direct fitnes = gene copies passed by oyurself
Indirect ftness: gene copies passed by relatives
inclusive = direct fitness + indirect fitness
sometimes mor important or as important as indirect fitness. might see some
organisms decrease there own fitness to increase their relatives fitness.
chapter 15 Answer -
what are the components of inclusive fitness? Answer - direct fitness + indirect
fitness.??
what is Hamilton's rule? Answer - tells you when kin selection matter most?
the less therelationship the more benfit there has to be to overcome the cost...
go over this...
,turkery example?
why do animals give alarm calls? Answer - 1. signal to the predaote: make
future attacks less likely
2. reduce predator success
3. signal to conspecifics:increase predation risk for sender, benefits recivers.
they are drawing attention to themself.
4.one way to recognize relatives
in (Krakauer, 2005), why are turkeys displaying in pairs? what does the
subordinate male have to gain? how did they demonstrate this? Answer -
Quantitiative test of hamiltons rules
the two males are forming females together, one male is domninant over the
other and gets all the mating,
Krauker though its kin selected so they tested hamiltons rule. they were 42%
related. theydid the math and it is supported that the benefit is greater than
the cost of having its ownoffsrping.
how do individual animals recognize kin? Answer - dont necessarliy have to
recognize it, but they are slected to act towards it.
1. social recognition: species, gender, social, indivdual, kin; either recognizing
indivs of species or of gender, another level is recognizng indivs in your social
group, another level is recognizing certain indivs, this is most likley th emsot
important type in sharing social behaviour in mammals and birds, kin
recognition is another type of social recognition, distinushing relatives fromnon
relative.
2. condition vs. fixed strtegies:
-condition involves kin discrimition, recognizing and being involved with how
they behave towards a certain indivdual is determined by how they are related
to the,. if they are sister thy behave one wy or the other.
, -fixed: they have fixed behaviour whether they are realted or not. likley
because they either dont recognize kin, or because they are always
encountering kin, everyone around them is related.
1. bheaviours may be affectd by average relatedness of indivuals-
conditional..??
2. low dispersal = higher average relatedness. fixed..
why might kin recognition be unnecessary for kin selection to occur? Answer -
dont assume that it has to be about whether or not they can actually tell if
someone is your brother or not, if it is likley that everyone is your brother thn
selection will favour altruism.
as long as selectiona cts on it, it doesnt matter if they can actuall recognize kin
what is the green beard effect? Answer - two characters in a linakge
disequlibrium,may be because they are on the same chromomse, or evolution
just causes it. but one is signaling one thing and the other singals another. two
loci in disagreement with each other.
what is the green beard in fire ants? Answer - multiple queens per nest
Gp-9 locus - green beard gene
Polygene queens =multiple heterozygous Bb
they thought all the queens are heterozygous, you would epxect this to be the
opposite. this is because homozygous for the recessive allele indivs die really
early and do not make it to adulthood. any BB started to reproduce would likly
be killed by workers. its thought that little b alleles owuld induce the killing of
queeens that are homozygous. they think this because of green beard effect
they can smell it and sense out the ones that dont have it and th ebb are
aggressive and kill the ones that dont have it.
phenotypic thing causes to act on their behaviour. discriminating on the gene
level
