Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice.

Autor: Bedford NL; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Current address: Department of Zoology and Physiology University of Wyoming Laramie Wyoming 82071 USA., Weber JN; Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Current address: Department of Integrative Biology University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison Wisconsin 53706 USA., Tong W; Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA., Baier F; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA., Kam A; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA., Greenberg RA; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA., Hoekstra HE; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.; Center for Brain Science Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Evolution letters [Evol Lett] 2022 Jul 22; Vol. 6 (4), pp. 330-340. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jul 22 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1002/evl3.293
Abstrakt: Animals often adjust their behavior according to social context, but the capacity for such behavioral flexibility can vary among species. Here, we test for interspecific variation in behavioral flexibility by comparing burrowing behavior across three species of deer mice (genus Peromyscus ) with divergent social systems, ranging from promiscuous ( Peromyscus leucopus and Peromyscus maniculatus ) to monogamous ( Peromyscus polionotus ). First, we compared the burrows built by individual mice to those built by pairs of mice in all three species. Although burrow length did not differ in P. leucopus or P. maniculatus , we found that P. polionotus pairs cooperatively constructed burrows that were nearly twice as long as those built by individuals and that opposite-sex pairs dug longer burrows than same-sex pairs. Second, to directly observe cooperative digging behavior in P. polionotus , we designed a burrowing assay in which we could video-record active digging in narrow, transparent enclosures. Using this novel assay, we found, unexpectedly, that neither males nor females spent more time digging with an opposite-sex partner. Rather, we demonstrate that opposite-sex pairs are more socially cohesive and thus more efficient digging partners than same-sex pairs. Together, our study demonstrates how social context can modulate innate behavior and offers insight into how differences in behavioral flexibility may evolve among closely related species.
Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
(© 2022 The Authors. Evolution Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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