SOCIALITY IN RODENTS - THE NEW-WORLD FOSSORIAL HYSTRICOGNATHS AS STUDY MODELS

Some rodents are social in that multiple adult individuals spend most of their lives in close association with other conspecific individuals , usually sharing a feeding area and a burrow system. The evolution of such sociality has been related to the distribution of food resources , the cost of burrowing, and the risk of predation. In this article I review these factors in the context of fossorial and semifossorial rod ents and show that most of this theory has been formulated considering either North American ground-dwelling sciurids or African mole-rats. I review the behavioral ecology of some selected species of New World hystricognaths and suggest that future studies of species within this group of rodents will broaden our perspective of sociality in mammals and possibly ether animal groups. Such studies will provide the indepe ndent tests that current hypotheses explaining the evolution of social ity need. I identify critical predictions of hypotheses and suggest co mplementary approaches to test them.