Kinship analysis reveals reproductive success skewed toward overwintered Brandt’s voles in semi-natural enclosures  

作　　者：Yan CHEN Dawei WANG Ning LI Xiangfa HU Fei REN Weili HAO Ying SONG Xiaohui LIU 

机构地区：[1]State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Disease and Insect Pests,Institute of Plant Protection,Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,Beijing,China [2]College of Life Sciences,Sichuan University,Chengdu,China

出　　处：《Integrative Zoology》2019年第5期435-445,共11页整合动物学（英文版）

基　　金：the National Na­ture Science Foundation of China(31471790);the Ag­ricultural Ag­ricultural Science and Technology Innovation Pro­gram(National Key Technology R&D Program,2012BAD19B02);the National Basic Research Pro­gram of China(973 Program,2007CB109104)。

摘　　要：Age structure and seasonality influence the population fluctuations of small rodents.Age determines body weight and social experience,while seasonality regulates the duration of the breeding season and onset of sex­ual maturity in newborn offspring.Therefore,reproductive success and skew usually occur in different age groups.Brandt’s vole(Lasiopodomys brandtii)is a social,short-lived and seasonal breeding small rodent with a dramatic seasonal population fluctuation,but reproductive skew is not fully understood in this species.In the present study,we determined kinship in semi-natural enclosure populations using microsatellite markers based on genotyping,analyzed the reproductive skew between sexes and between overwintered and newborn voles,and monitored variation in male reproductive activity by testing fecal testosterone levels throughout the year.Overwintered voles had the most reproductive success along with a striking increase in the population size in the enclosures,with all biological fathers and 77.8%of biological mothers,which had 100%and 87%of the to­tal offspring,respectively.Compared to overwintered voles,reproductive skews were significantly higher in po­tential overwintered and newborn parents,implying the possible reproductive suppression of newborn voles by dominant overwintered voles.Moreover,both heavier body weight and higher testosterone levels in overwin­tered males supported their potential social status in the population.Our study provided new evidence for repro­ductive skew and differentiation of postnatal gonadal development patterns of different age groups in Brandt’s vole.

关 键 词：Brandt’s vole microsatellite marker reproductive skew social dominance TESTOSTERONE 

分 类 号：H32[语言文字—法语]