Does altruism exist in nonhuman animals?

Animals are not machines motivated by the sole instinct to survive. They are living beings capable of experiencing many emotions, including empathy and tenderness, even feeling the need to help others.

Despite the fact that, taking an evolutionary logic focused on the survival of the fittest, altruistic behaviors would not have a place in selection natural, since they imply that the individual who performs them sacrifices something to benefit others, at the expense of her own survival and reproduction.

With this in mind, many evolutionary scientists wonder if it is true that animals perform true altruistic behaviors. Is there altruism in animals, or is there really any motivation behind their seemingly selfless actions? We will try to answer this question below.

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Is there altruism in animals?

Altruism consists of benefit other individuals at the expense of our own well-beingIn other words, it involves helping others while we lose something, to a greater or lesser extent. This quality is usually associated with human beings, however the question has also arisen as to whether it is possible that there is altruism in animals, in fact, more and more people, especially those who live with pets, claim that in some way or another they Animals have behaved altruistically, doing something beneficial to their owners but putting themselves in danger, such as saving them in a fire.

This topic has been of great interest to the field of zoology and associated branches, since, in principle, altruism in animals collides with classical evolutionist thesis but apparently it seems to be a reality: there are animals that help others without receiving anything in return, or at least that It seems. This is striking since the classical conception of wildlife is limited to two actions: survive and perpetuate its species. If you help another individual by taking risks he would be behaving in an “unnatural” way.

Intraspecific altruism

Really, These altruistic behaviors are totally natural and make a lot of evolutionary sense if they occur in the same species, since modern conception of evolution is not the survival of the fittest, but in getting the genes to pass on to the next generation. Each individual has a specific genome, a set of genes that in a high percentage are the same as those of his closest relatives. Thus, individuals can leave copies of their own genes in subsequent generations in two ways: by reproducing themselves and by increasing the reproductive success of their relatives.

In other words, we don't have to reproduce to pass our genes on to the next generation. It is true that they would not be exactly our genes, but they would be largely the same. For example, if we have a brother and we sacrifice for him, ensuring that he can one day reproduce and have a child, to a large extent, it is as if we have reproduced ourselves. This is known as kinship selection and is the basis for intraspecific altruistic behaviors.

Another explanation given to altruistic behaviors within the same species is the principle of reciprocity, that is, helping an individual in distress, in case of surviving, that survivor will help the others when they are in distress. Another explanation is that through these behaviors the social structure of the community is reinforced, since generates a climate of trust, cohesion and protection, making the group more united and thus guaranteeing survival group.

Below we can see a few situations where kinship selection is well present since, even if one puts himself in danger or sacrifices part of his resources, the survival of similar congeners is ensured.

Communal breastfeeding

In many species of mammals, females are responsible for suckling both their young and those of others in the group., that is, they act as wet nurses. This is a tiring task since these females not only invest energy in raising their own young, but also the offspring of other females.

In other cases, what happens is that they do not show preferences and who they care for is indifferent, with which they may well be carrying out a child with great genetic similarity to them or to another from another mother, this being what would be considered altruistic behavior in the sense strict. One species that has this type of communal suckling are capybaras.

Alarm calls

Prairie dogs to rest using different types of calls. In this way they are told to hide and stay safe, while those who warn get the attention of the predator, exposing themselves to being hunted. This behavior has also been observed in many other types of mammals, such as meerkats, which have limbs that act as vigilantes who constantly scan the terrain and produce alarm calls when there are predators close.

Helpers in the nest

In many species of birds the young adults remain with their parents and help care for the next clutch., instead of flying out of the nest and forming their own families. Because their siblings have the same genes as them, they make sure they grow up healthy at the cost of reproducing themselves. Among the species that we can find this particular form of altruistic behavior we have the European chickadee (Parus major) and the Florida jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens).

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Reproductive altruism

In insects where there are workers, such as ants or bees, some individuals sacrifice their fertility and dedicate themselves exclusively to caring for and feeding the descendants of the queen. As these young are her sisters, since in these species all individuals are very closely related, ensuring that the queen's daughters grow and survive is another way to pass genes on to the next generation, similar to the case of helper birds.

Risky salvage

In cetaceans such as whales and dolphins and also in elephants, extremely risky behaviors have been found to rescue a member of the group who is in distress. For example, in the case of dolphins if they find someone who is badly injured and cannot swim well, they bring him to the surface so that he can breathe.

In the case of elephants, when a young man is trapped in a mud puddle, the others help him out, hitting them with the head or the trunk, even though they themselves could fall into the mud and get trapped.

Altruism between species?

Looking at the examples of intraspecific altruism it is understood why they occur. Although the individual himself does not reproduce or even ends up losing his life, ensuring of your relatives surviving is one more way of shifting your genes to the next generation. With the theory of kinship selection, the scientific community has been able to give an answer to the survival of genes maladaptive, since those who carry them survive thanks to the help of relatives who sacrifice themselves for them.

Now what about interspecies altruism? There are few cases in which it has been observed that an animal has helped another of another species or, even, it has helped animals that in principle could prey on it. Are they pure altruistic behaviors? Are they helping other animals because they want to? Is there a mutual benefit to what appears to be disinterested behavior?

That two organisms of different species help each other cannot be explained with the theory of kinship selection since there is not. They do not share the same genes, not even from phylogenetically close species. What's the point of helping a member of another species reproduce? Below we will look at some apparently cases of interspecific altruism and what explanations might make sense of them.

Reciprocity and cooperation

An interesting case of cooperative behavior was observed in Ethiopia recently. Two potential rivals, the gelada baboons (Theropithecus gelada) and the wolves of the Semien (Canis simensis) seemed to collaborate with each other and, they even made good friends, showing a situation that surely resembled the first scenes of the domestication process of the dog by action of the most primitive humans. These wolves do not attack the young of the primates which, in turn, allow the canids to be close to their herd and feed on mice that are attracted to the activity of the monkeys.

This is not altruistic behavior, since there are not some who lose something and the others win. They simply cooperate but in a very curious way, since wolves could feed a lot and rapidly attacking baby baboons, animals much more nutritious than small ones mice. The main advantage that they get from this agreement is that since mice are easier to hunt and there are in greater quantity, using bait monkeys they invest less energy obtaining more food in the long run term.

Another case of interspecific cooperation is found in the birds of the genus Indicatoridae, commonly called "honey indicators". These accompany badgers and humans to wild bees' nests, helping them find honey easily. The bird risks being stung, although it is already used to it and knows how to avoid it, while it benefits from the presence of other animals feeding on its remains.

Interspecific adoption

The most striking interspecific altruistic behavior is the adoption of animals of other species. It is normal that within a pack, when a cub loses its mother, another adult female takes care of it, making a lot of sense in the case intraspecific because this guarantees the survival of an individual very similar to her new mother, who was surely related to the mother biological. However, this logic is not applicable in the case of interspecific adoption.

In these cases, especially among mammalian species, that an adult female adopts a young from another species can be explained by epimeletic motivation, a kind of instinct that we have some species (including humans) to respond with paternal behaviors by recognizing infantile signs such as watery eyes, round face, small ears, little hands formed ...

It is not very difficult to understand this idea. Consider a puppy that is very few weeks old. Who does not have the need to cuddle and protect it? It is not a human baby, but it makes us want to want to take care of it. Well, the same thing happens to adult individuals of dogs, cats, gorillas, lions, tigers... There are many real cases of animals of these species that have adopted puppies from others, even breastfeeding them. There have even been cases of animals adopting puppies from their predators.

The adoption of offspring of a different species does not report any benefit in terms of biological efficacy and some biologists have hypothesized that this It could be due to an error in the recognition of the offspring or to the hormonal levels present in mammals when a mother has lost her young, needing to take care of a puppy and accepting the first one he meets.

Help and protection

But in addition to inter-species adoption, there are cases of interspecific altruistic behaviors that are truly striking, some of them benefiting individuals of our species. There are many cases of dolphins and other cetaceans that have saved drowning humans by bringing them to the surface, despite the fact that, technically speaking, we are one of its predators.

In 2009, a case that occurred in Antarctica was documented in which a seal fleeing a group of killer whales was saved by two humpback whales that passed by, getting in the way. These whales feed on fish and crustaceans, so the reason for saving the seal was not to eat it later. They really wanted to save his life, or at least that was concluded before such an interesting event.

Animals have feelings

Having seen everything explained, what we must be clear about is that many animals have complex feelings and, in one way or another, can perform behaviors that can be considered altruistic acts. Human beings are not the only animals with empathy and there are not few animals that are capable of caring for the selfless survival of others, both their own species and other

Naturally, the empathy that humans and animals can feel must be different. Although we cannot verify the intensity of this feeling in other animal species, it is not likely to be "the same" as ours, since it is like it or not, they continue to live in nature and guaranteeing their own survival or, at least, that of their relatives is above helping any other.

Be that as it may, there is altruism in animals because they feel. Whether it's helping a badly injured animal, keeping another from being hunted by getting in the way, or adopting a young from another species, animals can often behave disinterestedly. They will not do it instinctively, nor will it be the common rule, but of course on more than one occasion they show their ability to feel empathy by helping those who need it most.

Bibliographic references:

• Trivers, R.L. (1971). "The evolution of reciprocal altruism". Quarterly Review of Biology 46: 35-57. doi: 10.1086 / 406755.
• Hamilton (1964). "The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior II". Journal of Theoretical Biology 7: 17-52. doi: 10.1016 / 0022-5193 (64) 90039-6
• Hamilton, W. D. (1975): Innate social aptitudes of man: an approach from evolutionary genetics. In Robin Fox (ed.) Biosocial Anthropology Malaby Press, London pp.: 133-53
• Robert L Trivers (1971): The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism The Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1): 35-57.