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Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice

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 dive...

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Autores principales: Bedford, Nicole L., Weber, Jesse N., Tong, Wenfei, Baier, Felix, Kam, Ariana, Greenberg, Rebecca A., Hoekstra, Hopi E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9346082/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35937472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evl3.293
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author Bedford, Nicole L.
Weber, Jesse N.
Tong, Wenfei
Baier, Felix
Kam, Ariana
Greenberg, Rebecca A.
Hoekstra, Hopi E.
author_facet Bedford, Nicole L.
Weber, Jesse N.
Tong, Wenfei
Baier, Felix
Kam, Ariana
Greenberg, Rebecca A.
Hoekstra, Hopi E.
author_sort Bedford, Nicole L.
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-93460822022-08-05 Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice Bedford, Nicole L. Weber, Jesse N. Tong, Wenfei Baier, Felix Kam, Ariana Greenberg, Rebecca A. Hoekstra, Hopi E. Evol Lett Letters 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. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9346082/ /pubmed/35937472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evl3.293 Text en © 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). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Letters
Bedford, Nicole L.
Weber, Jesse N.
Tong, Wenfei
Baier, Felix
Kam, Ariana
Greenberg, Rebecca A.
Hoekstra, Hopi E.
Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice
title Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice
title_full Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice
title_fullStr Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice
title_full_unstemmed Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice
title_short Interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by Peromyscus mice
title_sort interspecific variation in cooperative burrowing behavior by peromyscus mice
topic Letters
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9346082/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35937472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evl3.293
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