ugni blanc

Question: What are the evolutionary implications of the fact that larger coalitions of male lions consist almost entirely of close relatives?

In a lion pride there are usually only a few males (the coalition), between 1-4. They can be related or unrelated, but depending on how many there are will determine how beneficial living in the pride is for unrelated males. With a coalition of two males, it wouldn't matter whether you are related or not to the other male because studies have shown that both males tend to reproduce equally in these cases. Now, if there is a coalition of more than two males, only the two highest ranking males will do most of the mating, leaving the other males to contribute to the prides protection and hunting but without the benefits of spreading their genes. Thus unless you are kin to the other males in the coalition, you will not benefit your genes by wasting time helping this pride. Therefore we tend to see prides with more than two males being more related because although the other males might not mate as much, they are still helping their genes because they share half of there genes with the other males.