Which of the following is true regarding parent-offspring conflict?
A) Weaning is an example of parent-offspring conflict because offspring can rely on the fact that they are more closely related to each other than they are to their mother.
B) A mother is equally related to each of her offspring; in contrast, an offspring is at most 25% related to its siblings but is 100% related to itself.
C) A mother is motivated to wean her current infant so she can begin investment in her next infant, but the infant will resist its mother's attempts at weaning because it is not in its genetic best interest.
D) Parent-offspring conflict only occurs in primates because reproductive costs are higher than for other mammals.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Parent-offspring conflict occurs when the interests of parents and their offspring are not aligned. Weaning is an example of this conflict because the mother is motivated to stop investing in her current offspring and start investing in a new one, while the current offspring wants to continue receiving resources from its mother. In terms of relatedness, a mother is equally related to each of her offspring because they all share 50% of their genes with her. However, siblings are only at most 50% related to each other and 100% related to themselves. Reproductive costs vary between species and can lead to parent-offspring conflict in any mammal, not just primates.

Which of the Following Is True Regarding Parent-Offspring Conflict