ASM 246 Exam 2 Study Questions AND
ANSWERS LATEST UPDATE 2024/2025
GRADED A
1. Living in social groups has both costs and benefits.
a) Give three costs of living in social groups.
● More competition over access to food and mates.
● Become more vulnerable to disease.
● Face various hazards from conspecifics (such as cannibalism, cuckoldry,
inbreeding, or infanticide).
b) Give three different categories of benefits of living in social groups.
● Chase away lone individuals from feeding trees.
● Protect their own access to food and other resources against smaller numbers of
intruders.
● Offers safety from predators because groups provide the three Ds: detection,
deterrence, and dilution.
c) According to lecture, which benefit of social life is most important in primates.
- Predator protection is important for primates.
2. How does living in groups reduce the risk of predation?
● There are more pairs of eyes on the lookout for predators.
● More effective in deterring predators by actively mobbing or chasing them away.
● The threat of predation to any single individual is diluted when predators strike at
random. If there are two animals in a group, and a predator strikes, each animal
has a 50% chance of being eaten. If there are 10 individuals, the individual risk is
decreased to 10%.
3. In female-bonded, multi-male species of primates, such as macaques and baboons,
1
, matrilinieally related females often occupy adjacent positions in the dominance
2
ANSWERS LATEST UPDATE 2024/2025
GRADED A
1. Living in social groups has both costs and benefits.
a) Give three costs of living in social groups.
● More competition over access to food and mates.
● Become more vulnerable to disease.
● Face various hazards from conspecifics (such as cannibalism, cuckoldry,
inbreeding, or infanticide).
b) Give three different categories of benefits of living in social groups.
● Chase away lone individuals from feeding trees.
● Protect their own access to food and other resources against smaller numbers of
intruders.
● Offers safety from predators because groups provide the three Ds: detection,
deterrence, and dilution.
c) According to lecture, which benefit of social life is most important in primates.
- Predator protection is important for primates.
2. How does living in groups reduce the risk of predation?
● There are more pairs of eyes on the lookout for predators.
● More effective in deterring predators by actively mobbing or chasing them away.
● The threat of predation to any single individual is diluted when predators strike at
random. If there are two animals in a group, and a predator strikes, each animal
has a 50% chance of being eaten. If there are 10 individuals, the individual risk is
decreased to 10%.
3. In female-bonded, multi-male species of primates, such as macaques and baboons,
1
, matrilinieally related females often occupy adjacent positions in the dominance
2
