Question

Male jawfish dig a burrow in the sand. A female jawfish lays her eggs in the burrow and the male fertilizes them. The male then takes care of the eggs until they hatch. If conditions get bad (water level goes down, water temperature or salinity goes up) the male jawfish will eat some of his own eggs. If conditions are good, the male doesn't eat any eggs.

Explain, using the principles of natural selection, how the egg-eating behavior of the male jawfish might have evolved???

Answer 1

Nature always selects the beneficial, suitable or adaptable genes that will survive in the ongoing environmental situation. Natural selection is also induced by many other factors as well. Evolutionary ways of survival, adaptation, growth is also selected by naturr over time. One of these methods is parental care.The egg eating behavior of male jawfish might have evolved through natural selection by adapting parental care. As the environment is full of predators, clinate stress etc, differrent organisms need to maintain their constant survival. For maintaining the pace, many species like jaw fishes , in which males show this kind of behaviour of parental care along with the female. To reduce risk of death of their progeny, males protect them untill they hatch. Whenever the environmental conditions are not good, they eat some of their eggs to ensure survival of at least some of their offsprings. Parental care by males or females require energy. Usually they get food from the environmental habitat in which they live, but when the conditions are stressful outside, they need to survive on their own so that they could protect their progeny. So they eat some of them to avoid their own death and ensure survival of atleast some of their own.

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