根田鼠母体捕食应激对其子代运动及探究行为的作用

Effects of predator-induced maternal stress on offspring’s locomotor activity and exploring behavior in root voles

本文研究了根田鼠母体捕食应激对其子代运动及探究行为的作用。母体自妊娠中期至分娩期间,每天被短暂且重复地暴露给艾鼬。分娩后,对母体及其子代正常饲养。在子代性成熟后,分别测定其运动和探究行为。母体捕食应激显著降低子代的运动时间和频率。在探究行为中,母体捕食应激子代的探究潜伏期和探究时间均显著大于对照子代;其次,母体捕食应激雌性子代的探究次数显著小于对照。另外,个体的运动水平以及探究潜伏期和探究次数均存在性别差异。本研究结果表明,田鼠类母体捕食应激对其子代运动和探究行为有显著的抑制作用,由此可能对子代适合度,乃至种群波动产生负效应。

This study compared locomotor activity and exploring behavior of offspring from mothers stressed by predator with those from non-stressed mothers in root voles （Microtus oeconomus）. Pregnant mothers were exposed to a predator at 9 - 11 days of pregnancy by placing cages housing this mothers away 200 cm a cage housing the steppe polecat until confinement. Their offspring then were housed under standardized laboratory conditions. At adulthood, we measured locomotor activity and exploring behavior with laboratory made test-boxes, respectively. In locomotor activity, offspring from stressed mothers spent less time on locomotor activity and had lower activity frequency than offspring from non-stressed mothers. In exploring behavior, offspring from stressed mothers had higher exploring latency and longer exploring time compared to off- spring from non-stressed mothers. Moreover, prenatally stressed female offspring had lower exploring times than control fe- male offspring. Significant sex differences were observed in individual locomotor activity levels and exploring latencies and exploring times. The results in present study indicated that predator-induced maternal stress had adverse effects on offspring locomotor activity and exploring behavior, which may have influence on population dynamics.