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1.Choose any animal you wish that can recognize its offspring and explain how it

ID: 218211 • Letter: 1

Question

1.Choose any animal you wish that can recognize its offspring and explain how it accomplishes this and how it benefits from this behavior.

2.Explain the Mafia hypothesis for the evolution of brood parasitism

3.Consider siblicide in Great Egrets. Egrets lay 8 eggs and occasionally, the hatchlings will kill one another in an effort to increase the amount of food they can get from their parents. In so doing, they can produce two extra offspring. Suppose that each surviving offspring produces an average of six offspring.   If you consider a siblicide individual’s inclusive fitness, is siblicide adaptive? Use hamilton’s rule to support your answer.

Explanation / Answer

1) Many animals are accomplish of kin recognition aims that they can differentiate kin from non-kin. Most animals identify kin utilizing their well evolved smell sense. This has been accepted in ground squirrels,zebrafish, penguins, wasps.

It has been suggested that kin identification methods developed to ignore inbreeding and as a method to accurately direct altruistic behavior.

If animals as distinct are accomplish of identifying their relatives by smell, it’s possibly safe to achieve that most animals are adequate of identifying their offspring, that are one of the nearest relatives an animal can have. Actually, the study of ground squirrel indicateded that they could differentiate among the closest relatives (parents, siblings and offspring), also more far relatives.

2) The question arises that why most of the hosts of brood parasites care for the parasite's nestlings. Not only do these brood parasites generally alter crucially in size as well as appearance, but it is largely possible that they decrease the host's reproductive success. The "mafia hypothesis" developed over studies in an attack to reply this question. This hypothesis find solution over host guidance induced by attitude of the brood parasite. At the same time the disclosure and elimination of an egg of brood parasite's, the host's nest is plunder upon, its nest ruined and nestlings damaged or killed. This alarming response indirectly increases selective pressures supporting threatning behavior of parasite which may cause in positive feedback among mafia-like parasites as well as behaviors of compliant host.