Male and Female Meadow Voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, Differ in Their Responses to Heterospecific/Conspecific Over‐Marks

Abstract

Voles use runways, paths, and trails that may also be used by rabbits and mink. These shared areas could contain the scent marks of conspecifics and heterospecifics. Thus, it is likely that the scent marks of heterospecifics may overlap or be overlapped by those of voles, forming over‐marks. Much is known about how voles respond to over‐marks of two different conspecifics. However, we do not know how they would respond to an opposite‐sex conspecific whose scent marks are in an over‐mark with the scent marks of predator or the scent marks of a non‐predator heterospecifics. We tested the hypothesis that meadow voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, differ in their response to the scent mark of the opposite‐sex conspecific if the scent mark was overlapped by that of a mink, a vole predator, or rabbit, a vole non‐predator. We found that female but not male voles showed a preference for the scent marks of the opposite‐sex conspecifics that were part of the mink‐vole over‐mark when compared to those of opposite‐sex conspecifics that were not part of the over‐mark. This preference by female voles was independent of whether the male vole was the top‐scent donor or bottom‐scent donor of the over‐mark. Male and female voles showed no preference between the scent marks of the opposite‐sex conspecifics whose marks were part of or not part of the rabbit‐vole over‐mark. Sex differences in the manner that meadow voles respond to rabbit‐vole and mink‐vole over‐marks are discussed.

The economics of scent marking with urine and feces in goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa)

“…This phenomenon of preorbital marking in response to female marks is interpreted as a form of mate-guarding (Roberts and Dunbar 2000), and a similar behavior was observed in dibatag, when males urinated-defecated on top of urine spots of females (Walther et al 1983). Investigations of scent-marking behavior of voles (Microtus) and hamsters (Mesocricetus) showed that the receiver of the signal, irrespective of sex, responded selectively and focused its attention mostly to the top-scent mark, neglecting the bottom-scent marks (Johnston et al 1997;Ferkin 1999;Vlautin et al 2010). These findings unambiguously support the mateguarding hypothesis.…”

Dietary protein content affects the response of meadow voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, to over-marks

“…It is interesting to note that female voles exposed to the single and separate scent marks of two male donors respond preferentially to the mark of the male that was fed a diet higher in protein content than that of a male that was fed a lower protein diet (Ferkin et al 1997, Hobbs et al 2008. The difference in the responses of female voles supports and augments the view that voles may view or assess the scent marks of two male donors encountered first singly and separately as being somehow different than that of the scent marks of the same donors encountered first as part of an over-mark (Hurst and Beynon 2004;Ferkin et al 2010;Vlautin et al 2010).…”

“…To be included in the data analysis, subjects had to have investigated the scent marks of both donors and spend more time investigating the scent marks of the two donors than they did investigating the clean portion of the slide (Ferkin et al 1999Woodward et al 2000;Vlautin et al 2010). We used these times to compute a ratio for the time spent investigating the scent mark of the top-scent donor vs. the scent mark of the bottom-scent donor (Drickamer 1989).…”

“…Methods for the test phase are similar to those used in other studies involving over-marks (Ferkin et al 1999(Ferkin et al , 2010Woodward et al 2000;Vlautin et al 2010). We presented the male and female voles (subjects) with a glass slide (2.5×7.6 cm) that contained the feces scent marks of the two opposite-sex conspecifics that provided the top-and bottom-scent marks of the over-mark during the subject's exposure phase.…”

“…Each feces scent mark was approximately 1.2 cm in length and 0.3 cm in width. Thus, we were able to control for the size of the scent marks (Ferkin et al 1999(Ferkin et al , 2010Woodward et al 2000;Vlautin et al 2010).…”