A male redwing blackbird will chase predatory birds away from his breeding territory during nesting season. Which hypothesis best explains his behavior?
a. He is acting for the good of the species. He may die, but other birds of his species will be saved.
b. He knows this will increase his fitness, so he chases away the predator.
c. He carries a gene that causes fathers to protect their offspring, which increases inclusive fitness.
d. He has imprinted on the offspring in his nest, so he knows that they are his.

Question

A male redwing blackbird will chase predatory birds away from his breeding territory during nesting season. Which hypothesis best explains his behavior?

a. He is acting for the good of the species. He may die, but other birds of his species will be saved.

b. He knows this will increase his fitness, so he chases away the predator.

c. He carries a gene that causes fathers to protect their offspring, which increases inclusive fitness.

d. He has imprinted on the offspring in his nest, so he knows that they are his.

Accepted Answer

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Our next question says, bi parental care is most common in birds where the male usually provides blink and the female provides blink. So parental care is that care by both parents of eggs and then uh young offspring. And in birds, it's saying that we have the male usually providing something and the female usually providing something. Well, you can think about the image of a bird with a nest and we often think of the female sitting on the nest. So the female usually provides protection. She is sitting on top of the eggs, sitting in the nest with a very young offspring that provides warmth from her body. It provides uh shelter from the elements like from the hot sun or the rain. And by physically covering the eggs, she protects them from predators. The mail then provides most usually food. As a female sits on the nest, he goes out finds food, brings it back to the nest. He often regurgitates it to feed the female and then regurgitates to feed the chicks. Obviously, this is not every single bird's species. Um Some might involve both doing both roles, but in general, that's sort of as it says, it usually provides. So let's look for our answer. Choices. Choice A has male provides food, female provides protection. So we're gonna pick that as our answer in choice. B those orders are reversed. So I wanna cross that out and then choice C is shelter and learning. Choice D is learning and shelter. Um And these are both going to be incorrect and that has to do with the inclusion of learning in here. So when we think about what learning is in the context of animal behavior, learning is the acquisition or modification of the behavior as a result of experiences. So the parents aren't doing the learning um For learned behaviors, the chicks will do the learning as a result of their experiences, um learn and modify their behaviors, acquire behaviors. Um but the parents aren't doing the learning for them. So that's why those are incorrect. So again, bi parental care is most common in birds where the male usually provides choice a food and the female provides protection. See you in the next video.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Natural Selection and Fitness

Inclusive Fitness

Parental Investment Theory