Social Behaviour in Animals

A set of flashcards covering key terms and concepts related to social behavior in animals, including the evolution of altruistic and eusocial behaviors.

Social Behaviour

Interactions among individuals of the same species that can influence their fitness.

Altruistic Behaviour

Behaviour that reduces an actor's fitness to increase the fitness of another individual.

Eusociality

A social structure where one female reproduces while others, usually sisters, help care for offspring and do not reproduce themselves.

Kin Selection

A type of natural selection that favors altruistic behaviors, benefiting the actor's relatives who carry similar genes.

Fitness Costs

The potential decrease in an individual's reproductive success due to a particular behavior or action.

Cooperation

A behavior where both the actor and the recipient benefit in terms of increased survival and reproductive success.

Selfish Behaviour

A behavior where the actor benefits at the expense of the recipient's fitness.

Spiteful Behaviour

A behavior where both the actor and recipient are worse off in terms of fitness.

Hamilton's Rule

Altruism evolves if the benefit to the recipient multiplied by the relatedness of the recipient to the actor minus the cost to the actor is greater than zero (Br - C > 0).

Frequency-Dependent Selection

A type of selection where the fitness of a phenotype depends on its frequency relative to other phenotypes in a population.

Game Theory

A mathematical framework used to understand the strategic interactions between individuals in situations involving conflict over resources.

Relatedness (r)

The probability that a specific allele is shared between the actor and recipient, influencing the evolution of altruistic behaviors.