Entry #6: Evolution Of Altruism

There are many different ways in which altruism can evolve. Like we saw in the movie about the meerkats, there were babysitters that stayed behind and watched other female meerkats babies. The babysitters did not have to do this, but they did this in order to benefit themselves and hopefully in return they will also get something back. Reproductive altruism is a type of altruism where the individual does something to enhance the reproduction of another individual even if it is a cost to its own fitness. An example of this would be wolfs hunting in a pack. The wolves need to cooperate together in order to bring down a larger animal or possibly hunt down something tastier and more meaty. While doing this the wolves are increasing their fitness. With the vampire bat scenario, the bats that go out and hunt and find blood may sometimes share with other neighboring bats. This is crucial that a vampire bat gets something to eat because if they don’t they will die. If a vampire bat cannot find anything to eat, they will rely on their fellow bats to share with them. The bat that does end up sharing his food with other bats will expect all of them to return the favor at some point if there is one time where he cannot get food himself. This can be a safe cushion for the bat so hopefully other bats will remember what he did for them. If so the vampire bat may be able to find a fellow vampire bat that he can trust and they can work in pairs and possibly rotate and choose each night who will share and who will go out and hunt.

Entry #5: Queen Bees and Workers

The conflict that is between queen and worker bees is that the queen is the one that gets to lay the eggs and pass on her genes and the worker bees do not get to. They way in which it is decided if you are going to be a worker bee or a queen bee, is by what you are fed. If you are fed royal jelly you will become a queen bee. Between the worker bee and the queen bee, the queen bee always ends up winning. There are some worker bees that try to get away with laying their own eggs in the hive but those eggs end up getting removed. Other worker bees in the hive may remove the eggs that were laid by another worker bee. Indication of a different scent or the position of the egg may give it away that the egg laid is not that of the queen bee. There are some exceptions that can occur. Sometimes a worker bee can become a layering worker bee. This bee is a worker bee but it can lay eggs safely in the absence of a proper queen bee, although some other worker bees may also remove them if they are not recognized. A layering bee usually develops a couple of weeks after a queen bee has been absent. When a queen is absent the layering bee may lay eggs, but these eggs only give rise to drones. Besides a layering bee, it is almost always only the queen that may lay eggs and successfully produce offspring.

Entry #4: Natural and Sexual Selection

Natural selection is an evolutionary process where organisms inherit heritable traits that help them to live longer lives. These traits can help the organism live a longer life and also help the generations after them and their offspring survive and keep the lineage prolonged. Sexual selection is the struggle between individuals of one sex in order to have possession over the other sex. How Darwin explains the difference between the two is that natural selection is the “struggle for existence in relation to other organic beings or to external conditions” and that sexual selection is the “struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex.” How Dawkins explains the difference between the two is he calls natural selection “Parental Investment” which is “any investment by the parent in an individual offspring that increases the offspring’s chance of surviving at the cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring.” He looks at sexual selection as being a battle of the sexes. Both sexes want sons and daughters in equal numbers, and with this they agree. With what they disagree with is who is going to “bear the brunt of the cost of rearing each one of those children.” Darwin says that they do want children but who is going to put more effort into raising them, the mother or the father? The mother and the father want their children to survive but they need to invest energy into bringing them up.