A review of MHC-based mate preferences and fostering experiments in two congenic strains of mice

We review our studies of mate choice with two MHC-congenic strains of mice. This work was stimulated by findings from Yamazaki and colleagues showing that male mice exhibited mate preferences for females whose MHC-haplotype w as different from their own, while female mice exhibited either no preferen ce or a weak preference for males of a particular MHC-haplotype (see Beauch amp et al., 1988). Since these findings were unexpected (mate choice theory predicts that females will be more selective than males), we studied the p references of mice from two additional MHC-congenic strains to assess the g enerality of the previous findings. Specifically, the goals of our research were: (1) to determine the mate preferences of congenic mice with MHC-hapl otypes derived from wild populations, (2) to compare the mate preferences o f male and female mice in a test situation where each sex has a clear oppor tunity to make a choice, and (3) to estimate effects of cross-fostering on each sex.