Meeting Abstract
P1.11 Friday, Jan. 4 Female meadow voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus, do not alter their over-marking in response to female conspecifics that differ in nutritional status. FEMALE MEADOW VOLES, MICROTUS PENNSYLVANICUS, DO NOT ALTER THEIR OVER-MARKING IN RESPONSE TO FEMALE CONSPECIFICS THAT DIFFER IN NUTRITIONAL STATUS VLAUTIN, CT*; FERKIN, MH; University of Memphis ctvlutin@memphis.edu
Engaging in direct interactions with competitors can be costly. To avoid such encounters, many terrestrial mammals will deposit scent marks and over-marks as a proxy for direct, face-to-face interactions. Territorial individuals, like female meadow voles, will also use over-marks to signal presence in an area and willingness to mate to nearby males. Male and female meadow voles mate with multiple partners. Male voles are attracted to the scent marks of female conspecifics that have not been food deprived compared to those of females that were food deprived. Male vole subjects exposed to an over-mark in which the top-scent female was not food deprived and the bottom-scent female was food-deprived later spend more time investigating the scent mark of the top-scent female to that of the bottom-scent female when the two scent marks were encountered separately. Thus, it is expected that female voles should place their scent marks on top of those of neighboring females at a rate that will maximize their chances of attracting male conspecifics. We tested the hypothesis that subject female meadow voles will tailor the number and proportion of scent marks of females that they over-mark to reflect whether the subjects and the donors were food deprived for 6 hours or not food deprived. Both subjects that were food deprived and those that were not deposited a similar number of scent marks, used a similar proportion of their scent marks as over-marks, and over-marked a similar proportion of the scent marks of donor females independent of the dietary condition of the donors. This suggests that in this case, female-female over-marks may not be used for same-sex competition.
