BIOL100 Lecture Notes - Inclusive Fitness, Natural Selection, Eusociality
Document Summary
Social behaviour evolves when, by cooperating, conspecifics individuals can achieve higher rates of survival and reproduction than they would if they lived alone. Social systems are dynamic; individuals repeatedly communicate with one another and adjust their relationship. Their relationships change regularly b/c costs and benefits experienced by individuals in a social system change with their age, sex, physiological condition, and status. Group living confers benefits but also imposes costs. It may improve hunting success or expand the range of food that can be captured. Could also defend their prey and themselves from other carnivores, and they could tell one another about the locations of food and enemies. Social behaviour has many costs: interfere with one another"s abilities, may inhibit one another"s attempts to produce or injure one another"s offspring, and increases exposure to diseases and parasites. Parental care can evolve into more complex social systems.