Behavioral responses of rural and urban greater white-toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to sound disturbance

The development of urban areas imposes challenges that wildlife must adapt to in order to persist in these new habitats. One of the greatest changes brought by urbanization has been an increase in anthropogenic noise, with negative consequences for the natural behavior of animals. Small mammals are particularly vulnerable to urbanization and noise, despite some species having successfully occupied urban environments. To understand some of the traits that have enabled small mammals to deal with the consequences of urbanization, we compared the behavioral responses of urban and rural greater white-toothed shrews, Crocidura russula, to different sound stimuli. A total of 32 shrews, 16 from each habitat, were exposed in captivity to four sound treatments: silence, tawny owl calls, traffic noise, and white noise. Urban and rural shrews showed different behaviors, with urban animals being more active, feeding more frequently, and using less torpor than rural individuals. However, responses to sound treatments were similar in both populations: urban and rural shrews exhibited a slight decrease in activity and feeding behavior, as well as more fleeing responses, when exposed to traffic noise or white noise, but not to owl calls. These results suggest urbanization induces long-term changes in the general activity of C. russula, but the short-term behavioral response to sound disturbance remains similar in rural and urban populations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Data from: No speed dating please! Patterns of social preference in male and female house mice

Background: In many animal species, interactions between individuals of different sex often occur in the context of courtship and mating. During these interactions, a specific mating partner can be chosen. By discriminating potential mates according to specific characteristics, individuals can increase their evolutionary fitness in terms of reproduction and offspring survival. In this study, we monitored the partner preference behaviour of female and male wild house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) from populations in Germany (G) and France (F) in a controlled cage setup for 5 days and six nights. We analysed the effects of individual factors (e.g. population origin and sex) on the strength of preference (selectivity), as well as dyadic factors (e.g. neutral genetic distance and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) dissimilarity) that direct partner preferences. Results: Selectivity was stronger in mice with a pure population background than mixed individuals. Furthermore, female mice with a father from the German population had stronger selectivity than other mice. In this group, we found a preference for partners with a larger dissimilarity of their father’s and their partner’s MHC, as assessed by sequencing the H2-Eß locus. In all mice, selectivity followed a clear temporal pattern: it was low in the beginning and reached its maximum only after a whole day in the experiment. After two days, mice seemed to have chosen their preferred partner, as this choice was stable for the remaining four days in the experiment. Conclusions: Our study supports earlier findings that mate choice behaviour in wild mice can be paternally influenced. In our study, preference seems to be potentially associated with paternal MHC distance. To explain this, we propose familial imprinting as the most probable process for information transfer from father to offspring during the offspring’s early phase of life, which possibly influences its future partner preferences. Furthermore, our experiments show that preferences can change after the first day of encounter, which implies that extended observation times might be required to obtain results that allow a valid ecological interpretation

No speed dating please! Patterns of social preference in male and female house mice

Abstract Background In many animal species, interactions between individuals of different sex often occur in the context of courtship and mating. During these interactions, a specific mating partner can be chosen. By discriminating potential mates according to specific characteristics, individuals can increase their evolutionary fitness in terms of reproduction and offspring survival. In this study, we monitored the partner preference behaviour of female and male wild house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) from populations in Germany (G) and France (F) in a controlled cage setup for 5 days and six nights. We analysed the effects of individual factors (e.g. population origin and sex) on the strength of preference (selectivity), as well as dyadic factors (e.g. neutral genetic distance and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) dissimilarity) that direct partner preferences. Results Selectivity was stronger in mice with a pure population background than mixed individuals. Furthermore, female mice with a father from the German population had stronger selectivity than other mice. In this group, we found a preference for partners with a larger dissimilarity of their father’s and their partner’s MHC, as assessed by sequencing the H2-Eß locus. In all mice, selectivity followed a clear temporal pattern: it was low in the beginning and reached its maximum only after a whole day in the experiment. After two days, mice seemed to have chosen their preferred partner, as this choice was stable for the remaining four days in the experiment. Conclusions Our study supports earlier findings that mate choice behaviour in wild mice can be paternally influenced. In our study, preference seems to be potentially associated with paternal MHC distance. To explain this, we propose familial imprinting as the most probable process for information transfer from father to offspring during the offspring’s early phase of life, which possibly influences its future partner preferences. Furthermore, our experiments show that preferences can change after the first day of encounter, which implies that extended observation times might be required to obtain results that allow a valid ecological interpretation

FileS1_H2_EbExon2_phased

This file is an alignment of all sequences of the Histocompatibility 2 class II locus antigen E beta, Exon 2. Each individual is represented by its two alleles, where the phase of the two alleles was determined by using the phasing function included in the program DNASp (Rozas, J. (2009). DNA Sequence Polymorphism Analysis using DnaSP.)

Additional file 1: Table S1. of No speed dating please! Patterns of social preference in male and female house mice

All individual information (microsatellite data, experimental information). (CSV 27 kb

Additional file 3: Figure S2. of No speed dating please! Patterns of social preference in male and female house mice

a) Allele sharing tree (Bowcock et al. 1994) for all animals based on microsatellites. Even though a separation between populations is evident, small branch lengths reflect a still close relationship between individuals of all breeding types. b) Neighbour-joining tree of H2-Eß locus Exon 2 haplotype sequences. Bootstrap values > 50 are shown. No pattern of population divergence can be detected, both populations share several alleles. (PNG 301 kb

Communication at the Garden Fence – Context Dependent Vocalization in Female House Mice

<div><p>House mice (<i>Mus musculus</i>) live in social groups where they frequently interact with conspecifics, thus communication (<i>e</i>.<i>g</i>. chemical and/or auditory) is essential. It is commonly known that male and female mice produce complex vocalizations in the ultrasonic range (USV) that remind of high-pitched birdsong (so called mouse song) which is mainly used in social interactions. Earlier studies suggest that mice use their USVs for mate attraction and mate choice, but they could also be used as signal during hierarchy establishment and familiarization, or other communication purposes. In this study we elucidated the vocalization behaviour of interacting female mice over an extended period of time under semi-natural conditions. We asked, if the rate or structure of female vocalization differs between different social and non-social contexts. We found that female USV is mainly used in social contexts, driven by direct communication to an unknown individual, the rate of which is decreased over time by a familiarization process. In addition we could show that female mice use two distinct types of USVs, differing in their frequency, which they use differently depending on whether they directly or indirectly communicate with another female. This supports the notion that vocalization in mice is context dependent, driven by a reasonable and yet underestimated amount of complexity that also involves the interplay between different sensory signals, like chemical and auditory cues.</p></div

The experimental set-up.

<p>a) Photo of the arena set-up with one animal at the contact window (red circle). b) The contact window when closed and c) the open contact window. d) Schematic view of the arena with context regions as used for video scoring. The standard equipment for the experiments is colored in grey, the context regions that were used for video scoring are marked in different colors and inscribed with following abbreviations: CC = contact corners (dark blue); CR = contact region (light blue); CW = contact window (turquoise); F = food; FR = food region (green); H = red Plexiglas house; M = microphone, hanging from the top (see a); MB = male bedding (red); NR = neutral region (yellow); W = water.</p

Spectrograms of the 13 syllable types.

<p>Spectrograms were generated with 256(FFT) using the software Selena (Department of Animal Physiology, University of Tübingen; Germany). For abbreviations see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0097244#pone-0097244-t002" target="_blank">table 2</a>.</p