The Role of Urinary Proteins and Volatiles in Competitive Scent Marking Among Male House Mice

AbstractThe temporal sequences of acts and postures of rats during tests for isolation-induced fighting were recorded and analyzed. Scent-marking and olfactory investigation, which have been related to fighting by previous studies, were particularly emphasized. From the data a model was constructed for the sequence of behaviors which lead to and maintain isolation-induced fighting. The typical sequence begins with olfactory investigation and scent-marking; the home rat initially investigates the intruder, and the intruder initially investigates the cage. The combination of olfactory perception of a strange male and a familiar environment, it was suggested, serves to trigger an offensive mechanism in the home rat which leads to bite-and-kick attack and offensive sideways posture. The pain of the attack then triggers defensive mechanism in the intruder rat which leads to defensive upright posture and submissive posture. Whereas the functional role of the bite-and-kick attack appears to be simply the infliction of pain and elicitation of defense in the intruder, the function of offensive sideways posture as a threat behavior may be more complex. It is possible that it becomes a conditioned pain stimulus due to its close temporal pairing with bite-and-kick attack, but it is more likely that it produces defense by a process of sensitization. In any case, following the initial attack, the offensive sideways posture continues to elicit defensive behavior by the intruder even when there are no further attacks. The functional roles of the defensive postures were interpreted as positioning the intruder in such a way that the home rat cannot assume the aggressive posture from which attack is launched. Scent-marking behavior was consistent within strains, within individuals, and across different types of measures (accumulation of scent-marking marking material and performance of the stereotyped scent-marking act, crawl-over-dish). Amount of scent-marking was not correlated with attack, however, and its role in isolation-induced fighting remains unclear. In parallel to findings in other rodents, it was observed that scent-marking was diminished in animals after they had been subjected to attack.

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Heterogeneity of Major Urinary Proteins in House Mice: Population and Sex Differences

Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 9 ◽

10.1007/978-1-4615-0671-3_31 ◽

2001 ◽

pp. 233-240 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Caroline E. Payne ◽

Nick Malone ◽

Rick Humphries ◽

Carl Bradbrook ◽

Christina Veggerby ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

House Mice ◽

Urinary Proteins ◽

Major Urinary Proteins

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Selection shapes the landscape of functional variation in wild house mice

BMC Biology ◽

10.1186/s12915-021-01165-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Raman Akinyanju Lawal ◽

Uma P. Arora ◽

Beth L. Dumont

Keyword(s):

Positive Selection ◽

Significant Proportion ◽

Wild Mouse ◽

House Mice ◽

Functional Variation ◽

Disease Associated Genes ◽

Functional Alleles ◽

The Impact ◽

Mouse Genetic

Abstract Background Through human-aided dispersal over the last ~ 10,000 years, house mice (Mus musculus) have recently colonized diverse habitats across the globe, promoting the emergence of new traits that confer adaptive advantages in distinct environments. Despite their status as the premier mammalian model system, the impact of this demographic and selective history on the global patterning of disease-relevant trait variation in wild mouse populations is poorly understood. Results Here, we leveraged 154 whole-genome sequences from diverse wild house mouse populations to survey the geographic organization of functional variation and systematically identify signals of positive selection. We show that a significant proportion of wild mouse variation is private to single populations, including numerous predicted functional alleles. In addition, we report strong signals of positive selection at many genes associated with both complex and Mendelian diseases in humans. Notably, we detect a significant excess of selection signals at disease-associated genes relative to null expectations, pointing to the important role of adaptation in shaping the landscape of functional variation in wild mouse populations. We also uncover strong signals of selection at multiple genes involved in starch digestion, including Mgam and Amy1. We speculate that the successful emergence of the human-mouse commensalism may have been facilitated, in part, by dietary adaptations at these loci. Finally, our work uncovers multiple cryptic structural variants that manifest as putative signals of positive selection, highlighting an important and under-appreciated source of false-positive signals in genome-wide selection scans. Conclusions Overall, our findings highlight the role of adaptation in shaping wild mouse genetic variation at human disease-associated genes. Our work also highlights the biomedical relevance of wild mouse genetic diversity and underscores the potential for targeted sampling of mice from specific populations as a strategy for developing effective new mouse models of both rare and common human diseases.

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Investigating the relationship between the relative age effect and leadership behaviors among male ice hockey players

International Review for the Sociology of Sport ◽

10.1177/1012690215616271 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 52 (6) ◽

pp. 751-768

Author(s):

Laura Chittle ◽

Sean Horton ◽

Patricia Weir ◽

Jess C Dixon

Keyword(s):

Online Survey ◽

Leadership Behaviors ◽

Relative Weight ◽

Ice Hockey ◽

Relative Age ◽

Relative Age Effect ◽

Hockey Players ◽

Weight Analysis ◽

Male House

This study examined the role of relative age on leadership behaviors among male house league ice hockey players. Athletes completed an online survey that solicited their birthdate along with their responses to the leadership scale for sport. As expected, the results of our analyses revealed no relative age effects. Captains scored significantly higher on the training and instruction, democratic behavior and social support dimensions of the leadership scale for sport. While there were significant multivariate differences between birth quartile and the dimensions of leadership, a relative weight analysis revealed that quartile of birth did not differ significantly on any of these dimensions. Thus, male house league hockey players are not (dis)advantaged in terms of their leadership behaviors as a consequence of relative age.

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