Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk

Abstract Infanticide, the killing of unrelated young, is widespread and frequently driven by sexual conflict. Especially in mammals with exclusive maternal care, infanticide by males is common and females suffer fitness costs. Recognizing infanticide risk and adjusting offspring protection according...

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Autores principales:	Merel C. Breedveld, Remco Folkertsma, Jana A. Eccard
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2019
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/17d6ce8a7f8848069b25ce9cea6f9e47
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:17d6ce8a7f8848069b25ce9cea6f9e472021-12-02T15:08:59ZRodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk10.1038/s41598-019-48459-92045-2322https://doaj.org/article/17d6ce8a7f8848069b25ce9cea6f9e472019-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48459-9https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Infanticide, the killing of unrelated young, is widespread and frequently driven by sexual conflict. Especially in mammals with exclusive maternal care, infanticide by males is common and females suffer fitness costs. Recognizing infanticide risk and adjusting offspring protection accordingly should therefore be adaptive in female mammals. Using a small mammal (Myodes glareolus) in outdoor enclosures, we investigated whether lactating mothers adjust offspring protection, and potential mate search behaviour, in response to different infanticide risk levels. We presented the scent of the litter’s sire or of a stranger male near the female’s nest, and observed female nest presence and movement by radiotracking. While both scents simulated a mating opportunity, they represented lower (sire) and higher (stranger) infanticide risk. Compared to the sire treatment, females in the stranger treatment left their nest more often, showed increased activity and stayed closer to the nest, suggesting offspring protection from outside the nest through elevated alertness and vigilance. Females with larger litters spent more time investigating scents and used more space in the sire but not in the stranger treatment. Thus, current investment size affected odour inspection and resource acquisition under higher risk. Adjusting nest protection and resource acquisition to infanticide risk could allow mothers to elicit appropriate (fitness-saving) counterstrategies, and thus, may be widespread.Merel C. BreedveldRemco FolkertsmaJana A. EccardNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Merel C. Breedveld Remco Folkertsma Jana A. Eccard Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
description	Abstract Infanticide, the killing of unrelated young, is widespread and frequently driven by sexual conflict. Especially in mammals with exclusive maternal care, infanticide by males is common and females suffer fitness costs. Recognizing infanticide risk and adjusting offspring protection accordingly should therefore be adaptive in female mammals. Using a small mammal (Myodes glareolus) in outdoor enclosures, we investigated whether lactating mothers adjust offspring protection, and potential mate search behaviour, in response to different infanticide risk levels. We presented the scent of the litter’s sire or of a stranger male near the female’s nest, and observed female nest presence and movement by radiotracking. While both scents simulated a mating opportunity, they represented lower (sire) and higher (stranger) infanticide risk. Compared to the sire treatment, females in the stranger treatment left their nest more often, showed increased activity and stayed closer to the nest, suggesting offspring protection from outside the nest through elevated alertness and vigilance. Females with larger litters spent more time investigating scents and used more space in the sire but not in the stranger treatment. Thus, current investment size affected odour inspection and resource acquisition under higher risk. Adjusting nest protection and resource acquisition to infanticide risk could allow mothers to elicit appropriate (fitness-saving) counterstrategies, and thus, may be widespread.
format	article
author	Merel C. Breedveld Remco Folkertsma Jana A. Eccard
author_facet	Merel C. Breedveld Remco Folkertsma Jana A. Eccard
author_sort	Merel C. Breedveld
title	Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
title_short	Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
title_full	Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
title_fullStr	Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
title_full_unstemmed	Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
title_sort	rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/17d6ce8a7f8848069b25ce9cea6f9e47
work_keys_str_mv	AT merelcbreedveld rodentmothersincreasevigilancebehaviourwhenfacinginfanticiderisk AT remcofolkertsma rodentmothersincreasevigilancebehaviourwhenfacinginfanticiderisk AT janaaeccard rodentmothersincreasevigilancebehaviourwhenfacinginfanticiderisk
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Rodent mothers increase vigilance behaviour when facing infanticide risk

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