Rodent Societies: An Ecological & Evolutionary Perspective

nal species that has been described as social (George and Crowther 1981). Although no information is available on group size, th ...

et al. 1988), and the canyon mouse has a relatively long weaning time and a very high relative birth mass compared to other spec ...

availability of suitable crevices (Pearson 1948; George and Crowther 1981; Channing 1984; Moses and Millar 1992; Prakash and Sin ...

T he family bathyergidae(African mole-rats) are subterranean rodents that range in sociality from species that are strictly soli ...

mys mechowiclade and the Cryptomys hottentotusclade (fig. 36.2) or even two genera (Coetomysand Cryptomys; Ingram et al. 2004). ...

the basal lineages in the Bathyergidae, Heterocephalus(40 – 48 myr), and Heliophobius(32 – 40 myr), may have been constrained no ...

Figure 36.3 Phylogeographic trends in the Bathyergidae inferred from analysis of mitochondrial 12S rRNA and cyto- chrome bsequen ...

Saharan Africa. The first fossil bathyergids are known from this period (Early Miocene) in both East Africa and Na- mibia, confi ...

ever, there is no a priori reason to suppose the ancestor was solitary, as the social traits of a common ancestor could equally ...

grove and Wissel 1988; Lovegrove 1991; Jarvis et al. 1994; Faulkes et al. 1997). This model has become known as thearidity-food- ...

but limit dispersal will result in a trend toward larger group size, provided other variables (e.g., predation) are fairly const ...

the Hystricognaths, but the variance within the family Bathyergidae does not appear to correlate with the degree of sociality (s ...

ligate outbreeder. In this species, a clear physiological block to reproduction is observed only in nonbreeding females (Bennett ...

Figure 36.4 Summary of the principal factors, and their interrelationships, thought to be important in the evolution of cooperat ...

A fter detecting a predator,individuals of numerous avian and mammalian species give alarm calls that warn conspecifics. But why ...

1984). In this chapter, I discuss interspecific differences among three species of prairie dogs regarding the frequency of infan ...

Jersey). Using binoculars and a 60-power telescope, stu- dents and I observe marked individuals from 4-meter-high towers. Becaus ...

copulations occur underground, but aboveground court- ship and guarding behaviors indicate which male(s) copu- lates with each e ...

their natal burrows. Further, 1-year-old males that are sex- ually immature usually reside in the natal territory. Con- sequentl ...

tiate torpor in early fall (Fitzgerald and Lechleitner 1974; Rayor et al. 1987; Hoogland 1999)— once again months after completi ...