Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Zilkha, Noga
• Chuartzman, Silvia Gabriela
• Sofer, Yizhak
• Pen, Yefim
• Cum, Meghan
• Mayo, Avi
• Alon, Uri
• Kimchi, Tali

Titel

Sex-dependent control of pheromones on social organization within groups of wild house mice

Ist Teil von

• Current biology, 2023-04, Vol.33 (8), p.1407-1420.e4

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Dominance hierarchy is a fundamental social phenomenon in a wide range of mammalian species, critically affecting fitness and health. Here, we investigate the role of pheromone signals in the control of social hierarchies and individual personalities within groups of wild mice. For this purpose, we combine high-throughput behavioral phenotyping with computational tools in freely interacting groups of wild house mice, males and females, in an automated, semi-natural system. We show that wild mice form dominance hierarchies in both sexes but use sex-specific strategies, displaying distinct male-typical and female-typical behavioral personalities that were also associated with social ranking. Genetic disabling of VNO-mediated pheromone detection generated opposite behavioral effects within groups, enhancing social interactions in males and reducing them in females. Behavioral personalities in the mutated mice displayed mixtures of male-typical and female-typical behaviors, thus blurring sex differences. In addition, rank-associated personalities were abolished despite the fact that both sexes of mutant mice formed stable hierarchies. These findings suggest that group organization is governed by pheromone-mediated sex-specific neural circuits and pave the way to investigate the mechanisms underlying sexual dimorphism in dominance hierarchies under naturalistic settings. •Male and female wild mice form dominance hierarchies under semi-natural settings•Males and females display sex-specific personalities associated with ranking•Dominance hierarchies are dependent on pheromone detection in a sex-specific manner•Genetic disabling of pheromone detection abolishes ranking-associated personalities Zilkha et al. investigate dominance hierarchies and individual personalities in groups of wild mice. They show that males and females form hierarchies using different strategies and display sex-typical personalities. Disabling of VNO-mediated pheromone detection generated sexually dimorphic effects and abolished rank-associated personalities.