Egalitarian cooperation linked to central oxytocin levels in communal breeding house mice.

Relationships between adult females are fundamental to understanding diversity in animal social systems. While cooperative relationships between kin are known to promote fitness benefits, the proximate mechanisms underlying this are not well understood. Here we show that when related female house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) cooperate to rear young communally, those with higher endogenous oxytocin levels have more egalitarian and successful cooperative relationships.

Cryptic kin discrimination during communal lactation in mice favours cooperation between relatives.

Breeding females can cooperate by rearing their offspring communally, sharing synergistic benefits of offspring care but risking exploitation by partners. In lactating mammals, communal rearing occurs mostly among close relatives. Inclusive fitness theory predicts enhanced cooperation between related partners and greater willingness to compensate for any partner under-investment, while females are less likely to bias investment towards own offspring.

Unraveling female communication through scent marks in the Norway rat.

Chemical communication by females remains poorly understood, with most attention focused on female advertisement of sexual receptivity to males or mother-offspring communication. However, in social species, scents are likely to be important for mediating competition and cooperation between females determining individual reproductive success. Here, we explore chemical signaling by female laboratory rats () to test i) whether females target their deployment of scent information differentially according to their sexual receptivity and the genetic identity of both female and male conspecifics signaling in the local environment and ii) whether females are attracted to gain the same or different information from female scents compared to males.

Fitness Costs of Female Competition Linked to Resource Defense and Relatedness of Competitors.

AbstractFemale reproductive success is often limited by access to resources, and this can lead to social competition both within and between kin groups. Theory predicts that both resource availability and relatedness should influence the fitness consequences of social competition. However, testing key predictions requires differentiating the effects of these two factors.

Individual odour signatures that mice learn are shaped by involatile major urinary proteins (MUPs).

Background: Reliable recognition of individuals requires phenotypic identity signatures that are both individually distinctive and appropriately stable over time. Individual-specific vocalisations or visual patterning are well documented among birds and some mammals, whilst odours play a key role in social recognition across many vertebrates and invertebrates. Less well understood, though, is whether individuals are recognised through variation in cues that arise incidentally from a wide variety of genetic and non-genetic differences between individuals, or whether animals evolve distinctive polymorphic signals to advertise identity reliably.

Molecular heterogeneity in major urinary proteins of Mus musculus subspecies: potential candidates involved in speciation.

When hybridisation carries a cost, natural selection is predicted to favour evolution of traits that allow assortative mating (reinforcement). Incipient speciation between the two European house mouse subspecies, Mus musculus domesticus and M.m.

The Genetic Basis of Kin Recognition in a Cooperatively Breeding Mammal.

Cooperation between relatives yields important fitness benefits, but genetic loci that allow recognition of unfamiliar kin have proven elusive. Sharing of kinship markers must correlate strongly with genome-wide similarity, creating a special challenge to identify specific loci used independently of other shared loci. Two highly polymorphic gene complexes, detected through scent, have been implicated in vertebrates: the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which could be vertebrate wide, and the major urinary protein (MUP) cluster, which is species specific.

Pheromonal induction of spatial learning in mice.

Many mammals use scent marking for sexual and competitive advertisement, but little is known about the mechanism by which scents are used to locate mates and competitors. We show that darcin, an involatile protein sex pheromone in male mouse urine, can rapidly condition preference for its remembered location among females and competitor males so that animals prefer to spend time in the site even when scent is absent. Learned spatial preference is conditioned through contact with darcin in a single trial and remembered for approximately 14 days.

Darcin: a male pheromone that stimulates female memory and sexual attraction to an individual male's odour.

Background: Among invertebrates, specific pheromones elicit inherent (fixed) behavioural responses to coordinate social behaviours such as sexual recognition and attraction. By contrast, the much more complex social odours of mammals provide a broad range of information about the individual owner and stimulate individual-specific responses that are modulated by learning. How do mammals use such odours to coordinate important social interactions such as sexual attraction while allowing for individual-specific choice? We hypothesized that male mouse urine contains a specific pheromonal component that invokes inherent sexual attraction to the scent and which also stimulates female memory and conditions sexual attraction to the airborne odours of an individual scent owner associated with this pheromone.

Cloning and expression of two secretory acetylcholinesterases from the bovine lungworm, Dictyocaulus viviparus.

We describe the molecular cloning, expression and biochemical characterisation of recombinant forms of two secreted acetylcholinesterases from adult Dictyocaulus viviparus. The two variants (designated Dv-ACE-1 and Dv-ACE-2) were 613 and 615 amino acids long and showed 94.7% identity to one another.