Testosterone pulses paired with a location induce a place preference to the nest of a monogamous mouse under field conditions

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Abstract

Changing social environments such as the birth of young or aggressive encounters present a need to adjust behavior. Previous research examined how long-term changes in steroid hormones mediate these adjustments. We tested the novel concept that the rewarding effects of transient testosterone pulses (T-pulses) in males after social encounters alters their spatial distribution on a territory. In free-living monogamous California mice (Peromyscus californicus), males administered three T-injections at the nest spent more time at the nest than males treated with placebo injections. This mimics T-induced place preferences in the laboratory. Female mates of T-treated males spent less time at the nest but the pair produced more vocalizations and call types than controls. Traditionally, transient T-changes were thought to have transient behavioral effects. Our work demonstrates that in the wild, when T-pulses occur in a salient context such as a territory, the behavioral effects last days after T-levels return to baseline.

Data availability

All data analysed for this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files have been provided for all figures.Petric, Radmila. 2021. "T-Pulses at the Nest." OSF. osf.io/qknze.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/QKNZE

Article and author information

Author details

Radmila Petric

Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, United States

For correspondence
r_petric@uncg.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2651-3328
Matina C Kalcounis-Rueppell

Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Catherine A Marler

Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

National Science Foundation (1355163)

Matina C Kalcounis-Rueppell
Catherine A Marler

Sigma Xi (Spring 2018)

Radmila Petric

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All animal care and use guidelines were followed and research protocols for this study were approved by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and University of Wisconsin-Madison Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC; UNCG 12-004 and UWM L005047-A01) and by California Department of Fish and Wildlife under Scientific Collection Permits (SC-9663 and SC-13190).

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.