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Altruism in animalsAltruism is a well-documented animal behaviour, which appears most obviously in kin relationships but may also be evident amongst wider social groups. Additional recommended knowledge
Altruism: kinship and reciprocity
Animals have been shown to have altruism towards each other Research in evolutionary theory has been applied to social behaviour, including altruism. Some animal altruistic behaviour is explained by kin selection. Beyond the physical exertions that mothers, and in some species fathers, undertake to protect their young, extreme examples of sacrifice may occur. One example is matriphagy (the consumption of the mother by her offspring) in the spider Stegodyphus. Hamilton's rule describes the benefit of such altruism in terms of Wright's coefficient of relationship to the beneficiary and the benefit granted to the beneficiary minus the cost to the sacrificer. Should this sum be greater than zero a fitness gain will result from the sacrifice. When apparent altruism is not between kin, it may be based on reciprocity. A monkey will present its back to another monkey, who will pick out parasites; after a time the roles will be reversed. Such reciprocity will pay off, in evolutionary terms, as long as the costs of helping are less than the benefits of being helped and as long as animals will not gain in the long run by "cheating" - that is to say, by receiving favours without returning them. How this can be so is elaborated on in game theory and specifically the prisoner's dilemma as social theory. Examples of animal altruism
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Altruism_in_animals". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |