Question

Some species of wasps are social. The queen starts a colony from scratch each spring. She builds a small nest, and lays and raises a group of female workers. The workers enlarge the nest while the queen continues to lay eggs. Unfertilized eggs become males that mate with newly hatched females. All of the wasps except the newly fertilized females die by the summer.

Which best describes this behavior?

a)It is beneficial only to the males that do not fertilize eggs.
b)It is beneficial only to the female workers that are not fertilized.
c)It is beneficial to each one of the individual colony members.
d)It is beneficial to the whole species, but not to all of the individual members.

Answer 1

d) It is beneficial to the whole species, but not to all of the individual members.

Step-by-step explanation:

This kind of behavior increases the fitness of the species as a whole at the cost of individual members. The individual members of the species show altruistic behavior towards the queen and her progenies by helping her in building nest where she could lay eggs so that the generation of wasps could continue. The workers rather than producing their own off springs by laying eggs choose to help queen in raising her off springs. This altruistic behavior of workers is beneficial for the continuation of their species even if they die without reproducing.

Answer 2

Answer is D because the species will continue on but not the whole population