MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

A CASE STUDY IN EVOLUTIONARY

BIOLOGY AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
Submitted to fulfill one of the course assignments
Principles Of Biology 1

LECTURER:
ARDHINI RIN MAHARNING

ARRANGED BY:
ISNAENI NUR ARDIANTI (B1B021028)
PATUAN LINEKER SINURAT (B1B021017)
YUNITA PUSPITASARI (B1B021001)
ZANUBA ULYA HAURA CELLIN (B1B021038)
CLASS: D
GROUP: 9

FACULTY OF BIOLOGY
MAJOR OF INTERNATIONAL BIOLOGY
JENDERAL SOEDIRMAN UNIVERSITY
PURWOKERTO
2021
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the paper

Squirrels are a group of small mammals that resemble squirrels.
Scientifically, squirrels are not the same and distant relatives of the
squirrel family. The difference with squirrels is that squirrels do not
have long whiskers. The snout is also longer and tapered and does not
have a pair of large, chisel-shaped incisors. Like squirrels, squirrels are
generally active foraging during the day. Squirrels are generally good
at climbing and have good senses of sight, hearing and smell. Its diet
consists of insects and fruit, but sometimes also eats parts of other
plants and animals. Squirrels have a very long snout; face, mouth, and
nose, with tail feathers that are not too thick. Anatomically it has parts:
esophagus, ventricles, intestine tenure, cecum, vesica fellea, liver,
pancreas, suprarenal gland, kidney, ureter, ovary, oviduct, spleen, and
uterine musculinus.
Squirrels are a group of small mammals that resemble squirrels.
Scientifically, squirrels are not the same and distant relatives of the
squirrel family. The difference with squirrels is that squirrels do not
have long whiskers. The snout is also longer and tapered and does not
have a pair of large, chisel-shaped incisors. Like squirrels, squirrels are
generally active foraging during the day. Squirrels are generally good
at climbing and have good senses of sight, hearing and smell. Its diet
consists of insects and fruit, but sometimes also eats parts of other
plants and animals.
Squirrels often do camouflage, especially when on tree trunks.
Squirrels also have the speed of moving from one tree to another, so
predators will be fooled. Squirrels have the ability to turn their legs one
hundred and eighty degrees, which makes it possible to immediately
run up the nearest tree to escape. Squirrel whiskers play a role in
maintaining balance. If the whiskers are cut, the squirrel can't maintain
balance.

1.2 Problem Formulation

1. Generate some hypotheses to explain why the squirrels call.
 2. What predictions do you have about the frequency of alarm
calling for the hypotheses generated in number 1?
3. What conclusions can you draw from the data in the result
section?
4. Why might females call more often than predicted by their
abundance?
5. How might individuals recognize kin?
6. Suppose there were a car wreck and you could only help
some one people. Based on the forced economics of kin
selection, how many nephews or nieces would you have to
help? If helping need you to give up three children?
7. Many recent articles demonstrate that decreased parental
attention and increased child abuse are more common in
stepchildren than for offspring that are genetically related to
both caregivers. How does kin selection explain these data?

1.3 Purpose of Paper

1. To know the reproductive system and habitat of squirrels.
2. To know and understand the description and classification
of squirrels.
3. To know how to recognize squirrels with their own
relatives.
4. To find out the hypothesis and habitat of the squirrel.
 CHAPTER II
THEORY AND DISCUSSION

Belding’s ground squirrels (Spermophilus beldingi) are squirrels

that live on mountains. They live in sub-alpine meadows in the far
Western United States. They are classified as diurnal rodents, a
mammal, and are part of Sciuridae family. Due to the extreme weather,
the squirrels hibernate for seven or eight months of the year. The
squirrels must enter hibernation with sufficient fat stores to survive this
long hibernation. They spend their short active period by initially
mating, then eating large quantities of food. They are primarily
herbivorous, eating mostly seeds, flowers, and vegetation. The females
establish territories within the social group and have between three and
six pups. Adult females mate shortly after they emerge from
hibernation. Some males disperse to new groups after mating and the
others often return to hibernation before the young are born. The pups,
juvenile, and grown males disperse by moving to another place that
confer fitness advantages by reducing potential costs of kin
competition and inbreeding or by leaving a deteriorating habitat,
whereas confer advantages with familiarity and kin cooperation. The
females typically remain in their natal (birth) group for life.
Figure 1. Ground Squirrels

In 1977, Paul Sherman studied about Belding’s ground squirrel

behavior. The squirrels are expose to many dangers, such as predators
include coyotes, weasels, and raptors. If a squirrel spots a predator,
they will stand up on their hind feet and call out an alarm. When others
hear the alarm, they quickly retreat to their burrows. Not all squirrels
are equally likely to call. We could not discriminate between the
hypotheses without knowing the age, sex, and family dynamics of the
group. I would predict that a mother squirrel will call out warnings
more than any other squirrel. The only way to know this is to know
age, sex, and who is male and female squirrels are. However, that one
squirrel is calling out warnings and is sacrificing its life for the benefit
of the group. The female squirrel causes a diversion that causes the
predator to temporarily focus on them while other people in the group
hide in burrows.
Natural selection must support evolution with behavior’s helps. It
gives heritage abilities of behavioral traits. From this natural selection
called the 'Kin Selection'. Kin selection is a major that focused in
growing up organisms on the field of behavioral ecology, the field of
study, behavioral traits, and specific social behaviors happened in
evolution. Further modifications and improvements to the relative
selection theory have been made, such as defining intercourse in
various ways. Cooperation between relatives' parents is favored by the
difference in physical condition between mothers' own production of
offspring. If Kin selection contributes to the development of
cooperation, behavioral traits should also be motivated by the indirect
benefits of physical well-being for relatives. This indirect component
can be calculated net fitness benefits for loved ones receiving aid
depreciates according to the kinship coefficient (Dobson, 2012).
Conventional theories include behaviors that interfere with
individuals physical performance by introducing the concept of
inclusive fitness extended. (Hamilton, 1964). Inclusive fitness consists
of two parts: individual fitness, and seeing the effects it has on its
neighbors' fitness, doubled by their own fractional affection. This
therefore takes into account the full impact of each individual's life on
the influence of the genes in future generations, whether through
successive generations, the production of the individual's own
offspring and through an effect on reproduction of other individuals. A
social act is favored by natural selection if it increases the inclusive
fitness of its performers. Kin selection theory explains social behavior
on a personal level rather than on a group or species level. An idea
about Inclusive fitness explicitly focuses on the contribution of
individuals to population changes (Eberhard, 1975).
 Kin selection, the kind of natural selection that considers the role
of kinship. Squirrels will give alarm to another if they are in danger of
predators. Usually female squirrels call more often than others.
Squirrels call to inform their close neighboring of any imminent
danger. The squirrel would make a call to protect another squirrel that
has a genetic or virtually a sibling. The genetic proximity is when one
squirrel to another comes from the same bloodline. A squirrel will
rescue another squirrel if that squirrel that is rescued will benefit more
than itself.
Behavior means acting, reacting, or functioning in a certain
way in response to some stimulus (stimulus). In other words, behavior
is a response or response to various stimuli, both from the external
environment and from within the body itself related to what living
things do and how these living things do it. Behavior is also an activity
of an organism due to a stimulus. The behavior of these organisms
includes the behavior of animals, plants, or microorganisms
(Rakhmawati, 2014). Evolution is a change in living things that occurs
gradually over a long period of time. Evolution occurs when these
heritable differences become more common or rare in a population.
These changes are caused by a combination of 3 main
processes namely variation, reproduction, and selection. Evolution is
driven by 2 main mechanisms, namely natural selection and genetic
variation. From Sherman’s experiment, we can conclude that adult
female squirrels are the type of squirrel that does the most activities or
calls rather than any other abundance. The callers order is a juvenile
female squirrel, a juvenile male squirrel, then an adult male squirrel
and the last is a male squirrel on or until the age of 1 year. Meanwhile,
the squirrel calls less frequently when using the predicted one.
Ground squirrels live in colonies. Grown males usually leave
their colony and disperse to other colonies by late summer and settle
250-500 m away from where they were born, while females usually
stay in the colony where they were born and as a result live near
relatives. Females are more likely to give alarm calls when close
relatives are nearby by sensing scent and other cues to recognize who
their close kin are. They have the evolution of nepotistic, or altruistic,
behaviors that give their relatives benefits, such as alarm calling,
repeated call, and cooperative defense of territories. (Sherman, 1985).
Alarm calls are risky because callers are twice more likely to be caught
by a predator than non-callers, so females only risk calling if they have
close kin living nearby. By saving close kin from predation or assisting
them in preventing infanticide, and nepotistic, squirrels are helping
their relatives to survive and pass on such genes so the behavior saving
lives of the caller’s relatives become more common. Since adult males
do not live near close kin, they do not engage in these nepotistic
behaviors. (Waggoner, 2012).
Figure 2. Squirrels with Their Relatives

Squirrels recognize their relatives by comparing their

phenotype with the squirrels they encounter. This phenotype comes in
the form of scent via the dorsal glands. Each squirrel has its own
distinctive scent that others can use to identify it. If the individual
phenotypes match, it may be a relative. Recognizing their relatives is
important for female Belding ground squirrels. This allows them to
know who to act nepotistic ally when defending a nest or territory or
when making an alarm call. Related females also, on occasion, share
food and shelter.
Female squirrels make their calls more often because female
squirrels are very close to their relatives in the nest. Meanwhile, male
squirrels leave the nest and disperse to form new colonies elsewhere.
The presence of the mother who is always in the nest with her child in
addition because it was the mother who gave birth to her child, she
must be able to recognize her own child.
The economics of kin selection from squirrels can be applied in
any help-and-die experiences. If one person has to help any nephews or
nieces and is forced to give up three children this selection occurs with
their equation. First, the relatedness has to be determined. The
relatedness with the offspring is 0.5 and the relatedness with the
nephews or nieces is 0.25. While the children for these sacrifices are
three, its cost can be determined by multiplying 3 and 0.5. The cost (C)
result is 1.5. To obtain the benefit (B), the person needs to help 7
nephews or nieces. This benefit is the result of over twice the cost. The
benefit also can be determined by trying different numbers and
dividing by 0.25 to see if the result is over twice the cost or not. The
equation can be seen as 7/1.5 > 0.5/0.25. The left-part is over the right-
part. This shows that helping can be adaptive during this situation.
Along with much less parental attention and child abuse on
stepchild, kin selection can explain this phenomenon. We can inform
the relatedness between the child and his/her father is 0.5 because the
parents share the same genes by common descent, the relatedness
between the child and his/her stepbrother/sister is 0.5 because they
share the same half genes from the father, the relatedness between the
stepmother and her own offspring is 0.5, and there is no relatedness
between the child and his/her stepmother. From the relatedness, we can
see that the child would likely be abused or mistreated by the
stepmother rather than the offspring that are genetically related to both
stepmother and father. What kin selection does here is caused by the
fact that there is no relatedness between the child and the stepmother.
The data support there is a tendency to favor individuals that share
genes over individuals that do not share genes. There is a clear vision
in the data that separates the treatment of relatives over non-relatives.
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