Question: @Suzanne What is a baboons closest relative? @Renata Do you study animals inland and if so which species of bird are they? @Kapila Can you get footage of the red kites flying using your gps'? @Claire What makes every species co operate to do things like build a nest or look after eggs?

Claire El Mouden answered on 26 Jun 2013:

Hiya,

Well, not every species cooperates. There are many species where, for example the male bird leaves the female bird to do everything on her own. There are many species (like tigers and leopards) which are solitary – in other words they do not live in groups like lions, and (apart from mother and cubs), don’t like being together.

So the real question is why do some species cooperate and some don’t…there are many bits to that answer. Often species work together because it is the only way to survive – often by working together you can live in really harsh places that you could never survive in alone.

When it comes to cooperation, like helping to raise chicks, the parent birds decide to help, because the chicks share their genes. Therefore, if the parents did not help care for the chicks, those chicks would probably die, meaning they would never grow up and have chicks of their own. Therefore the genes that made parents uncaring would eventually die out. By contrast, chicks who have very caring parents, who bring them lots of food, are more likely to survive, and as offspring share the same genes, they resemble their parents, meaning that those chicks are more likely to be caring chicks as well. So the simple answer is that the parent birds help at the nest (more generally, any species co-operates) when the individual they are helping shares the same genes as them, or the cooperation is in their mutual interest (i.e. so it is in the animal’s interest to cooperate as it helps them survive).

Does that answer your question?