Why does altruism seem paradoxical?
a. Sometimes altruistic behavior is actually selfish.
b. Altruism does not actually help others.
c. Alleles that cause an organism to behave altruistically should be selected against since these alleles should lower the organism's fitness.
d. Animals behave altruistically to help the species, but sometimes their behavior harms the species.

Question

Why does altruism seem paradoxical?

a. Sometimes altruistic behavior is actually selfish.

b. Altruism does not actually help others.

c. Alleles that cause an organism to behave altruistically should be selected against since these alleles should lower the organism's fitness.

d. Animals behave altruistically to help the species, but sometimes their behavior harms the species.

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone and welcome to today's video. So which of the following is an example of altruism. So altruism is an interaction between two animals. And I want you to recall from previous videos what this interaction is going to entail and in case you forgot. Let me quickly remind you. But altruism is when an animal's behavior benefits another animal even to the potential of the detriment of themselves. So basically this is what we call a selfless act or a sacrifice. So an animal is going to be sacrificing its own fitness in order to improve the fitness of another animal. Now that we know this, let's go over answer choices so that we may begin solving the problem. Beginning by answer choice B. And use pheromones to communicate with other ends. This is going just to be communications. This is not going to be an interaction with where one end benefits and the other one benefits to or anything like such because of this. We're going to cancel this. Oh and move on to answer choice. C female turtles, the shore ones they have deposited and bury their eggs in the sand. This is again an example of reproduction in this case here, we're not talking about interactions between two organisms that have different effects. So we're going to cancel this out. Then we have answer choice D. A. Remora attached itself to a shark for a free meal here we actually have two organisms and an interaction between them. However, this organism, in case of the remora is going to be benefiting and the shark because it is receiving a meal from from the shark. However, the shark will not be either benefited or harmed in this process because of this, this type of interaction is going to be called commence realism. It is not going to be an example of altruism because no organism is damaged or is put in a detrimental place because of this. We're going to cancel this out as well. Then we're left with answer choice A but feed each other by regurgitating food. Once you think about what happens when these bats are regurgitating food, they're basically giving away their only source of food to other bats. So one bad is being damaged because you're giving away their food and another bad is being benefited because they're receiving the food because of this. This is going to be a perfect example of altruism and we're going to highlight this answer choice as the final answer to our question. I really hope this video helped you and I hope to see you on the next one.

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Key Concepts

Altruism in Biology

Fitness and Natural Selection

Kin Selection and Inclusive Fitness