PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Mate choice in mice is heavily influenced by paternal cues

Hybrid offspring of different house mice populations show a preference for mating with individuals from their father's original population

2013-03-28
(Press-News.org) This press release is available in German.

Mate choice is a key factor in the evolution of new animal species. The choice of a specific mate can decisively influence the evolutionary development of a species. In mice, the attractiveness of a potential mate is conveyed by scent cues and ultrasonic vocalizations. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön investigated whether house mice (Mus musculus) would mate with each other even if they were from two populations which had been separated from each other for a long time period. To do this, the researchers brought together mice from a German population and mice from a French population. Although to begin with all the mice mated with one another randomly, the hybrid offspring of French and German parents were distinctly more choosy: they showed a definite preference for mating with individuals from their father's original population. According to the researchers, this paternal imprinting accelerates the divergence of two house mouse populations and thus promotes speciation.

In allopatric speciation, individuals of a species become geographically isolated from each other by external factors such as mountains or estuaries. Over time, this geographic separation leads to the sub-populations undergoing various mutations, and thus diverging genetically. Animals from the two different sub-populations can no longer successfully reproduce, so two new species evolve.

To find out what role partner selection plays in such speciation processes, Diethard Tautz from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and his colleagues conducted a comprehensive study on house mice – the classic model organisms of biology. "To investigate whether there are differences in the mating behaviour of the mice in the early stages of speciation, we caught wild house mice in southern France and western Germany. The two populations have been geographically separate for around 3,000 years, which equates to some 18,000 generations," says Diethard Tautz. Due to this geographical separation, the French and German mice were genetically different.

The Plön-based researchers created a semi-natural environment for their investigations – a sort of "Playboy Mansion" for mice. The research enclosure was several square meters in size and was divided up using wooden walls, "nests" made out of plastic cylinders, and plastic tubes. It also featured an escape tube with several entrances, which led into a cage system nearby. "We constructed the enclosure in such a way that all animals had unimpeded access to all areas, but thanks to the structural divisions were also able to create their own territories or retreat into nests," explains Tautz. "The escape tube was a control element. If the mice retreated to it only very seldom – as was the case in our experiment – then we could be sure there was no overpopulation in the central enclosure."

In this central enclosure, the French and German mice had both time and space to mate with each other and reproduce. "At first, all the mice mated with each other quite randomly. But with the first-generation offspring, a surprising pattern emerged," says Tautz. When the first-generation hybrid offspring of mixed French and German parentage mated, they showed a specific preference for pure-bred mates whose "nationality" was that of their father only. "There must be some kind of paternal influence that prompts the hybrid mice to choose a mate from a specific population, namely that of their father," concludes the biologist, based on the results of his study. "This imprinting must be learned, however, meaning that the animals must grow up in the presence of their fathers. This was not the case for the original mice, which were kept in cages for a time after being caught."

"We know that mice use ultrasonic vocalizations to communicate with each other and that particularly in the case of male mice these vocalizations can reveal signals of individuality and kinship. We believe that, like birdsong, the vocalizations of the males have a learned component and a genetic component," says Tautz. Therefore, French and German mice really could "speak" different languages, partly learned from their fathers, partly inherited from them. Individual mice thus have a mating preference for mice that speak the same language as they do.

The French and German mouse populations had evidently been geographically separated long enough for preliminary signs of species differentiation to be apparent as regards mating preferences. In addition, another aspect of mating behavior also sped up the speciation process.

Although mice have multiple mates, the researchers found evidence of partner fidelity and inbreeding. The tendency to mate with relatives fosters the creation of genetically uniform groups. When both occur together, this accelerates the speciation process.

In a next step, Diethard Tautz wants to find out whether the vocalizations of the mice play the decisive role in paternal imprinting, or if scent cues are also involved. Furthermore, the biologist wants to identify the genes that are involved in mate selection.

INFORMATION:

Original publication:

Inka Montero, Meike Tesche and Diethard Tautz: "Paternal imprinting of mating preferences between natural populations of house mice (Mus musculus domesticus)", Molecular Ecology (2013), doi: 10.111/mec.122271;


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Many doctors do not provide tobacco cessation assistance to lung cancer patients

2013-03-28
DENVER – Physicians who care for lung cancer patients recognize the importance of tobacco cessation, but often do not provide cessation assistance to their patients according to a recent study published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO). An online survey was conducted in 2012 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's (IASLC) Tobacco Control and Smoking Cessation Committee. The survey asked IASLC members about their practices, perceptions and barriers to tobacco assessment and cessation in cancer patients. More than 1,500 IASLC members responded ...

Look out squirrels: Leopards are new backyard wildlife

2013-03-28
NEW YORK (March 28, 2013) — A new study led by WCS-India scientist Vidya Athreaya finds that certain landscapes of western India completely devoid of wilderness and with high human populations are crawling with a different kind of backyard wildlife: leopards. The study found as many as five adult large carnivores, including leopards and striped hyenas, per 100 square kilometers (38 square miles), a density never before reported in a human-dominated landscape. The study, called "Big Cats in Our Backyards," appeared in the March 6 edition of the journal PLoS One. ...

Children of deployed parents at higher risk for alcohol, drug use

2013-03-28
In 2010, almost 2 million American children had at least one parent in active military duty. A new University of Iowa study suggests that deployment of a parent puts these children at an increased risk for drinking alcohol and using drugs. Using data from a statewide survey of sixth-, eighth-, and 11th-grade students in Iowa, the researchers found an increase in 30-day alcohol use, binge drinking, using marijuana and other illegal drugs, and misusing prescription drugs among children of deployed or recently returned military parents compared to children in non-military ...

Combinations of estrogen-mimicking chemicals found to strongly distort hormone action

2013-03-28
For years, scientists have been concerned about chemicals in the environment that mimic the estrogens found in the body. In study after study, researchers have found links between these "xenoestrogens" and such problems as decreased sperm viability, ovarian dysfunction, neurodevelopmental deficits and obesity. But experimental limitations have prevented them from exploring one of the most serious questions posed by exposure to xenoestrogens: what happens when — as in the real world — an individual is exposed to multiple estrogen-mimicking chemicals at the same time? Now ...

UCLA study finds heart failure medications highly cost-effective

2013-03-28
A UCLA study shows that heart failure medications recommended by national guidelines are highly cost effective in saving lives and may also provide savings to the health care system. Heart failure, a chronic, progressive disease, affects millions of individuals and results in considerable morbidity, the use of extensive health care resources, and substantial costs. Currently published online, the study will also appear in the April 2 print issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Researchers studied the incremental health and cost benefits of ...

Penn researchers show stem cell fate depends on 'grip'

2013-03-28
The field of regenerative medicine holds great promise, propelled by greater understanding of how stem cells differentiate themselves into many of the body's different cell types. But clinical applications in the field have been slow to materialize, partially owing to difficulties in replicating the conditions these cells naturally experience. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has generated new insight on how a stem cell's environment influences what type of cell a stem cell will become. They have shown that whether human mesenchymal stem cells ...

Obesity leads to decreased physical activity over time

2013-03-28
Physical activity and its relation to obesity has been studied for decades by researchers; however, almost no one has studied the reverse – obesity's effect on physical activity. So BYU exercise science professor Larry Tucker decided to look at the other side of the equation to determine if obesity leads to less activity. The findings, no surprise, confirmed what everyone has assumed for years. "Most people talk about it as if it's a cycle," Tucker said, senior-author on a study appearing online ahead of print in the journal Obesity. "Half of the cycle has been studied ...

Mindfulness from meditation associated with lower stress hormone

2013-03-28
Focusing on the present rather than letting the mind drift may help to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research from the Shamatha Project at the University of California, Davis. The ability to focus mental resources on immediate experience is an aspect of mindfulness, which can be improved by meditation training. "This is the first study to show a direct relation between resting cortisol and scores on any type of mindfulness scale," said Tonya Jacobs, a postdoctoral researcher at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain and first author of a ...

Home hot water temperatures remain a burn hazard for young and elderly

2013-03-28
Home hot water heater temperatures are too high, warns a team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Despite the adoption of voluntary standards by manufacturers to preset hot water heater temperature settings below the recommended safety standard of 120°F, temperatures remain dangerously high for a significant proportion of homes, presenting a scald hazard for young children and the elderly. The report is published in the March 2013 issue of Journal Of Burn Care Research. In the U.S., tap water burns cause an estimated 1,500 hospital ...

New American Chemical Society video explores the chemistry of egg dyeing

2013-03-28
With millions of eggs about to have their annual encounter with red, green, blue and other dyes this holiday weekend, the American Chemical Society (ACS) today released a new video that will egg people on in discovering the chemistry that underpins the process. The video is at http://www.BytesizeScience.com. Produced by the ACS Office of Public Affairs, The Chemistry of Egg Dyeing features Diane Bunce, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at The Catholic University of America. Bunce explains, for instance, why vinegar is so important for eggshells to take up dye. Eggshells ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Are lifetimes of big appliances really shrinking?

Pink skies

Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research

Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered

% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?

An app can change how you see yourself at work

NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals

New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes

Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others

Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke

Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition

Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly

Alcohol makes male flies sexy

TB patients globally often incur "catastrophic costs" of up to $11,329 USD, despite many countries offering free treatment, with predominant drivers of cost being hospitalization and loss of income

Study links teen girls’ screen time to sleep disruptions and depression

Scientists unveil starfish-inspired wearable tech for heart monitoring

Footprints reveal prehistoric Scottish lagoons were stomping grounds for giant Jurassic dinosaurs

AI effectively predicts dementia risk in American Indian/Alaska Native elders

First guideline on newborn screening for cystic fibrosis calls for changes in practice to improve outcomes

Existing international law can help secure peace and security in outer space, study shows

Pinning down the process of West Nile virus transmission

UTA-backed research tackles health challenges across ages

In pancreatic cancer, a race against time

[Press-News.org] Mate choice in mice is heavily influenced by paternal cues
Hybrid offspring of different house mice populations show a preference for mating with individuals from their father's original population