野生雄性小家鼠的行为

【作者】 房继明；

【导师】 孙儒泳； Chris Barnard； Jane Hurst；

【作者基本信息】 北京师范大学 ， 动物生态学， 1992， 博士

【摘要】 本实验以在英格兰捕获的野生小家鼠(Mus domesticus Rutty)第一、第二雄性后代为材料,研究小家鼠在自由活动条件下的非社会行为(4种)和社会行为(16种),涉及从断乳到性成熟的行为发育,成年雄鼠(包括优势鼠和从属鼠)的行为特征、底物气味在维持社会容忍中的作用、亲缘关系对行为的影响、亲缘识别、以及用DNA指纹图谱判别后代的双亲等方面。这些均为动物行为学研究的活跃领域、前沿课题。主要结论如下: 1.无亲缘关系的陌生雄幼鼠在共同生活12天后形成社会等级,成为优势雄鼠的平均年龄为52.08日龄。 2.有亲缘关系的陌生雄幼鼠(同92异母兄弟)共同生活26天后形成社会等级,成为优势雄鼠的平均年龄为61.42日龄。 3.随着社会等级的出现,其它行为发生相应的变化,如自饰、聚集行为减少,嗅底物、互饰行为增多。 4.在描述、记录的20种行为中,断乳后出现的行为有互饰、甩尾、追逐、逃离等社会行为。 5.在社会等级形成之前,有可能预测雄幼鼠中的未来优势者,判断的行为指标是:在无亲绦关系组,未来优势鼠的非接触探究多于未来从属鼠,未来从属鼠接触未来从属鼠多于未来优势鼠;在有亲缘关系组,未来优势鼠嗅底物、跳跃行为多于未来从属鼠,未来从属鼠自饰、社会探究多于未来优势鼠。 6.成年优势鼠和成年从属鼠除打斗行为有显著差别外,优势鼠嗅底物、社会探究、尿标记等行为也显著地高于从属鼠。从属鼠接触从属鼠显著地多于优势鼠。 7.本实验中,优势鼠的攻击水平低于40秒/小时,与陌生雄鼠间、邻居间雄鼠的攻击水平相比,低得多。更多还原

【Abstract】 The first or second male generation of wild house mice doaesticus Ruddy) caught in England were tested for the development of behaviour from weaning to adult, the characteristics of adult male (including dominant and subordinate), the role of substrate odour in maintaining social tolerance between male mice, the effect of kinship on behaviour of male mice, the ability to discriminate between unfamiliar individuals on the basis of kinship, parentage test using DNA fingerprinting etc. These studies are of special interest or update research field in animal behaviour. Four kinds of nonsocial behaviour and sixteen kinds of social behaviour were observed and recorded in both duration and frequency. The main conclusions of this thesis are as the follows.1. After the unrelated weaning male mice were housed together for 12 days, they formed their hierarchy (dominant/subordinate) at the mean age of 52.08 days.2. After the related weaning male mice were housed together for 26 days, they formed their hierarchy (Dominant/subordinate) at the mean age of 61.42 days.3. The changes of other non-agonistic behaviours took place corresponding to the forming of hierarchy, for examples, the decreasing of selfgroom and huddle, the increasing of sniff ano-genital and allogroom.4. Only four of 20 behaviours were showed by male mice after weaning, including allogroom, rattle, chase, and flee.5. It is probable to predict the coming dominant male among male weaning mice on the basis of behavioural index. In unrelated male group, the coming dominant male were more active in social investigation in distant than the coming subordinate. In related group, the coming dominant male were more active in sniffing sawdust substrate and climbing than the coming subordinate.6. Besides the significant differences in agonistic behaviour between dominant male and subordinate, sniffing substrate, social investigation and urine marking of dominant male were also significantly higher than that of subordinate. The subordinate preferred to touch other subordinate rather than the dominant male.7. There was little aggression of dominant male under all conditions (less than 40 seconds against each subordinate per hour observation), contrasting with the high levels of aggression commonly recorded between unfamiliar individuals and neighbouring in the other studies.8. Within the 1-hour observation period, the agonistic and social investigation decreased gradually, while the amicablebehaviour increased gradually. The first 10 minutes of 1-hour observation was the most important for observing the behaviour.9. On the basis of non-agonistic behaviour, especially social investigation and touching, it was probable to discriminate the dominant male in the male group whose hierarchy was unclear by discriminant analysis.10. 23-hour physical separation resulted in the decreasing of sniffing sawdust substrate and climbing, and the increasing of agonistic behaviour and social investigation. However, the dominant maintained most of its behaviours at the original level. The isolation mainly caused the subordinate to change its behaviours, particularly the behaviour towards other subordinate, due to the increasing aggression of himself.11. Mice which were physically separated but maintained with group substrate odours thus appeared to be recognized as familiar group members and tolerated. However, there were difficulties on recognizing males in unrelated groups when mice had not met for 23 hours.12. Removal of substrate odour cues appeared to increase this difficulty further, producing a significant bias in aggression towards unrelated males throughout the time males spent together. In unrelated groups "dispersed" subordinate were consistently attacked by "resident" males (i.e. dominant male and "resident" subordinate) more than "resident" subordinate.13. Dominant males in related groups initially investigated "dispersed" half sibling more than the resident males, but recognized them as familiar group members and did not attack.14. The discrimination between group member of male mice might be achieved by individual odour, not the group odour, and substrate odour might play more important role than body odour in the communication.15. The role of substrate was to help maintain the group stability, i.e. the mutual tolerance. The main function of subordinate substrate was used to communicate with dominant male and other subordinate, and to be recognized as group member.16. There were many significant differences in behaviours between unrelated and related groups when the groups were just set up, such differences as the less sniffing substrate, investigating in distant and agonistic behaviour, and the more investigating nose and body in related groups, compared to the behaviour in unrelated groups. But the differences disappeared in about 3 weeks when the group members became more and more familiar.17. Kinship still existed even both unrelated or related group ■embers lived for a long time. The differences in behaviours between unrelated and related groups was unobvious under thecondition of undisturbed living environment, but once being disturbed, even 24-hour isolation, or removing one individual’s odour in substrate, the differences became clear.18. The kin biased behaviours existed only on the first day when three unfamiliar weaning mice were housed together, paternal sibling investigate the ano-genital and body of unrelated male ■ore than the unfamiliar paternal sibling, this ability to discriminate related and unrelated male mice disappeared then.19. The unfamiliar paternal half-sibling might be discriminated by the common cues of paternal kinship through "phenotype Matching" or "recognition alleles". If the mechanism was the former, the template was of paternal characteristics, not maternal. The "kin recognition" template of phenotype matching here might be formed by two ways, one learning from self, the other learning from littermates.20. The similarity coefficient of DNA fingerprinting was not an ideal standard to identify the relationship among offspring and their putative parents, due to many shared bands among them. It was easy to find the real parent of the offspring on the base of the analysis of band sharing among offspring and their putative parent. DNA fingerprinting hybridized by mouse probe under low-stringency hybridization condition generated a novel and highly individual diagram for parentage test.更多还原