Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Holmes, Melissa M.
• Goldman, Bruce D.
• Holmes, Melissa M
• Buffenstein, Rochelle
• Park, Thomas J
• Park, Thomas J.

Titel

Social Behavior in Naked Mole-Rats: Individual Differences in Phenotype and Proximate Mechanisms of Mammalian Eusociality

Ist Teil von

• The Extraordinary Biology of the Naked Mole-Rat, 2021, Vol.1319, p.35-58

Ort / Verlag

Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) are small rodents native to east Africa, living in subterranean colonies of up to 300 individuals. Within each colony, reproduction is restricted to a single breeding female and 1–3 breeding males; all other colony members are reproductively suppressed and socially subordinate unless removed from the suppressive cues of the colony. Due to their striking reproductive skew, naked mole-rats are often considered eusocial mammals. Consistent with this idea, there are behavioral specializations and at least some evidence for morphological distinctions within and between the breeding and non-breeding members of the colony. Importantly, naked mole-rats show plasticity in their behavioral phenotype whereby changes in the social environment influence expression of both type and amount of social behavior. Thus, naked mole-rats provide the opportunity to examine the proximate mechanisms controlling individual differences in social behavior, shedding light on how mammals live in complex social groups.