Deck 16: Cooperative Behavior

Question 1

What evidence did Herczeg, Gonda, and Merilä (2009) use to suggest that sticklebacks suffer a cost of sociality?

A) Fish raised in groups took longer to find food.
B) Fish raised in groups suffered higher incidence of disease.
C) Fish in groups had lower growth rates than fish raised alone.
D) Fish in groups experienced a higher cost of movement.
E) Fish in groups had a more restricted diet than did solitary fish.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Social queuing refers to which of the following?

A) A line of individuals that defend their offspring
B) Waiting for access to a food in a social group
C) The time to find food in groups of different size
D) The ability to move up in dominance rank over time
E) The changing of an individual's sex over time

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Selection for behaviors that increase the fitness of relatives characterizes which of the following?

A) Group selection
B) Sexual selection
C) Offspring selection
D) Directional selection
E) Kin selection

Answer 3

E

Question 4

Based on Hamilton's rule, an individual is most likely to help which of the following?

A) Niece
B) Cousin
C) Sibling
D) Uncle
E) Grand-offspring

Question 5

According to Paul Sherman's (1977) work, why do male Belding's ground squirrels rarely produce the first alarm call when a predator is nearby?

A) Calls are costly, and the squirrels are surrounded by unrelated individuals.
B) Males cannot produce these high-pitched vocalizations as well as females can.
C) Males advertise to predators instead of producing alarm calls.
D) Males are not attacked by predators .
E) Males have poor vision and so do not see predators first.

Question 6

Hamilton's rule predicts that altruism can evolve under which of the following circumstances?

A) B - r < C
B) B - C < r
C) B > C * r
D) B * r > C
E) B * C > r

Question 7

In the haplodiploid genetic system, which pair of individuals is most closely rated?

A) Mother - grandson
B) Mother - daughter
C) Father - mother
D) Sister - sister
E) Cousin - cousin

Question 8

The habitat saturation hypothesis can explain which of the following?

A) The existence of reproductive skew
B) The evolution of distinct castes
C) The evolution of cooperative breeding
D) Indirect kin discrimination
E) Hamilton's rule

Question 9

The prisoner's dilemma game illustrates why the evolution of cooperation is difficult. What can facilitate cooperation in this game?

A) An increase in the temptation to cheat
B) Repeated interactions and reciprocity
C) A decrease in the sucker's payoff
D) A single interaction between players
E) Random interactions between players in a large population

Question 10

Why is blood meal sharing in vampire bats considered to have evolved via reciprocal altruism?

A) Blood meal sharing often occurs only in captivity.
B) Individuals share food with individuals from whom they have received food.
C) There is no cost of blood meal sharing for the donor.
D) Males and females cooperate to obtain blood meals.
E) Blood meal sharing in nature only involves relatives.

Question 11

In the captive Japanese macaques studied by Schino, Polizzi de Sorrentino, and Tiddi (2007), consider a situation in which individual A was observed to help individual B. This behavior was correlated with which of the following?

A) B helping A in the past
B) The degree of relatedness between A and B
C) Ambient temperature
D) The hunger level of A
E) The age of individual B

Question 12

Consider three individuals A, B, and C. In the model of indirect reciprocity, individual A helps B because of which of the following?

A) A saw C help B in the past.
B) A saw B help C in the past.
C) A and B are related to
D) B and C are related to each other.
E) B helped A in the past.

Question 13

Hamilton's rule assumes which of the following in order to explain the evolution of cooperative behavior?

A) Kin discrimination ability .
B) The ability to form image scores
C) Reciprocity
D) Numerical competency
E) Repeated interactions

Question 14

What two factors are required for the evolution of cooperative breeding?

Question 15

Bateson, Nettle, and Roberts (2006) work indicates that humans appear to care about their reputation for altruism. What assumption about their protocol is required to draw this conclusion?

Question 16

According to Hamilton's rule, which of the following are individuals more likely to help, given that providing help is costly: A) a first cousin or niece? B) a sibling or grandchild? C) a grandchild or nephew?