Question

List four ways in which members of the same species can cooperate with each other.

Answer 1

Cooperation is common in non-human animals. Besides cooperation with an immediate benefit for both actors, this behavior appears to occur mostly between relatives.[1] Spending time and resources assisting a related individual may at first seem destructive to the organism’s chances of survival but is actually beneficial over the long-term. Since relatives share part of their genetic make-up, enhancing each other’s chances of survival may actually increase the likelihood that the helper’s genetic traits will be passed on to future generations.[6] The cooperative pulling paradigm is an experimental design used to assess if and under which conditions animals cooperate. It involves two or more animals pulling rewards towards themselves via an apparatus they can not successfully operate alone.[7]