Animal behavior

Altruistic Behavior

• Action in which an organism helps another at its own expense

reduces individual fitness but increases fitness of recipient

kin selection

Animal Social Behaviors

Inclusive fitness:

• Represents the overall ability of individuals to pass their own genes on to the next generation as well as providing aid to closely related individuals (related individuals share many of the same genes)
• This concept can explain many cases of altruism in nature

Animal Social Behavior

Reciprocal altruism:

• Animals behave altruistically toward others who are not relatives, hoping that the favor will be returned sometime in the future.
• Animals rarely display this behavior…it is limited to species with stable social groups

Animal Social Behavior

Optimal foraging:

• Natural selection favors those who choose foraging strategies that maximize the differential between costs and benefits.
• If the effort involved in obtaining food outweighs the nutritive value of the food, forget about it.