DOES BEHAVIOR AFTER WEANING AFFECT THE DOMINANCE STATUS OF ADULT MALE-MICE (MUS-DOMESTICUS)

To investigate whether behaviour in the litter predicted later dominan ce status, male mice were observed whilst within their litters from th ree weeks old, and when paired with an unrelated male as an adult. We found that males that were dominant in their litter were not more like ly to become dominant as an adult. The best predictor of adult dominan ce status was the relative scent marking rate when with littermates, m ales that marked more than their adult partner were more likely to bec ome dominant. The high scent mark rate of dominant males may be the ca use not: the consequence of dominance, they scent mark at a higher rat e before becoming dominant. It was also shown that there are strong fa mily resemblances for scent mark rate, body weight and most urogenital gland weights. This indicates that scent mark rate and urogenital gla nd weights may be determined genetically, or partly determined by pare ntal effects. As found in previous work the preputial gland was heavie r in dominant males than subordinates. Furthermore, dominant males wer e lighter than subordinates at the end of the experiment indicating th at there may be a cost to maintaining dominance.