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Communal Nesting and Nursing in Mice
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Dams, mothers, nest together in order to raise their offspring, and have come to
follow communal nesting as a means of efficiently raising their young.-I do not really
understand this sentence. By communally nursing-you said nesting. That does not imply
nursing., parents are able to care for their young with less effort due to the fact that the
responsibility of caring for the children is divided amongst the mothers.-Basically what you
are saying is this: It has been observed that female mice nest together as well as nurse each
others young. The advantage is likely less stress on the mothers as the responsibility of
raising the young is now shared. Simplify. Just say what you want to say without all the
extra words to make it confusing. You need to transition into this sentence. Tell the
story…Scientists were interested in figuring out…tell a seamless story. The major
histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a large genomic region found on chromosome 6 that
produces proteins on the surfaces of cells which function during immune recognition.-my
grandma is getting dizzy!! Are you forgetting about the reader?? Yet MHC has a different
profound effect on living beings such as mice, it helps distinguish kin and thus allows for
mice to nest with those mice that have similar MHC-genes and not to mate with those mice
that have similar genes (Penn & Potts, 1999).Grandma, grandma, are you OK! I need to stop
here and help grandma back on her feet and you need to make this clear to the general
reader so that what happened to grandma does not happen to anyone else. Relate this to
what people already know. Be creative. It controls the mice’s lifestyle from the process of
birth to mating and even to raising pups of their own. MHC not only benefits the survival of
the young but it plays a role in identifying each mouse genetically. The MHC gene controls a
large part of the mice’s life and makes communal nesting a process that allows for optimal
conditions needed for survival.
Nesting with MHC-similar mice has become built into each mouse. It not only
benefits their family but also their kin and increases inclusive fitness, the survival of kin.
MHC-similar mice also choose not to mate together in order to ensure genetic diversity
(Manning, Potts, & Wakeland, 1991). However their survival also serves as two major
requirements of identifying genetics based on kin recognition (Manning, Potts, &
Wakeland, 1992). MHC is distinguished from mouse to mouse through a form of physical
discrimination based on each form of the MHC gene, which creates unique scents. The
genes, allowing for these preferences in kin recognition to be made, can be identified by
individual odors. The female partners that nest together share allelic forms of MHC. The
genotypes, the genetic makeup of an organism, and the haplotypes, a combination of alleles
that are transmitted together on a chromosome, affect the process of choosing nesting
partners. Different forms of genes characterize each individual, and genes that are closely
placed together tend to be inherited together. The MHC gene is of unprecedented genetic
diversity making it useful in the resolution of genetic relationships. They play roles in
determining a dam’s best choice of communal nesting partners, since females try their best
to live with kin.
Nesting patterns are of crucial importance to the raising and caring of young mice,
otherwise known as pups. Some pups are prone to infanticide at birth due to the tendency
of some territorial males to kill those pups that are not from his territory (Dewsbury,
Manning, Potts, & Wakeland, 1995). This already reduces the number of pups in a nest and
in order to benefit the survival of the remaining pups, it is in the interest of the dams, the
mothers, to communally nest. Communal nesting diminishes the necessity of wasting time
and energy on the parents’ side. However communal nursing is the responsibility that the
female parents must share, a process that involves the care of each individual pup. (Saylor
& Salmon, 1971) The pups must be indiscriminately provided for, nurtured with equal care,
and should not be discriminated based on physical or genotypic characteristics. However it
has been shown that mothers that communally nurse do discriminate against pups that are
of different age or size than their own offspring. (Potts, Manning, & Wakeland, 1994) This is
detrimental to the main function and purpose of a communal nest, which can cause some
pups to be at a disadvantage which is ironic when communal nests are formed to create
advantages for the young and their early lives. These offspring have a higher chance of
survival by being the products of communal nesting yet the dams must be aware that they
must care for their individual young at times. Another advantage of communally nesting is
the exposure to many dams which creates many forms of immunity especially from the
milk of the female mice as well as the mass of many different mice in a single area (Becker
et al., 2007).
Communal nesting is beneficial to mice and many other rodents as a means of
raising young. The role that the MHC-gene plays is major as it distinguishes between
partners for nesting and living together as well as mates with whom offspring are
produced. Mating is disassortative in which mates are chosen for the benefit of the genetic
diversity of the offspring, just like communal nesting is carried out to efficiently raise
young (Ilmonen et al., 2007). As parents, there is a notion to live for the next generation
and it is clearly visible in the lives of house mice.
References:
Becker, M.I., De Ioannes, A.E., León, C., & Ebensperger, L.A. (2007) Females of the
communally breeding rodent, Octodon degus, transfer antibodies to their offspring
during pregnancy and lactation. J Reprod Immunol, 74, 68-77.
Dewsbury, D.A., Manning, C.J., Potts, W.K., & Wakeland, E.K. (1995). Communal
nesting and communal nursing in house mice, Mus musculus domesticus.
Animal Behaviour, 50, 741-751.
Ilmonen, P., Penn, D., Damjanovich K., Morrison L., Ghotbi L., & Potts, W.K.
(2007). Major histocompatibility complex heterozygosity reduces fitness in
experimentally infected mice. Genetics 176, 2501-2508
Manning, C.J., Potts, W.K., & Wakeland, E.K. (1992). Communal nesting patterns
in mice implicate MHC genes in kin recognition. Nature, 360, 581-583.
Manning, C.J., Potts, W.K., & Wakeland, E.K. (1991).Mating patterns in
seminatural populations of mice influenced by MHC genotype. Nature, 352,
619- 621
Penn, D. & Potts W.K. (1999). The evolution of MHC-disassortative mating
preferences. American Naturalist, 153, 145-164.
Potts, W.K., Manning C.J., & Wakeland, E.K. (1994). The role of infectious
disease, inbreeding and mating preferences in maintaining MHC genetic
diversity: an experimental test. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 346, 369-378
Sayler, A., & Salmon, M. (1971) An Ethological analysis of communal nursing by
the house mouse (Mus musculus). Behaviour, 40, 62-85.