TY - JOUR

T1 - Parental responsiveness negatively correlates with fecal testosterone concentration in male mandarin voles (Microtus mandarinus)

AU - Smorkatcheva, A. V.

AU - Bychenkova, T. N.

AU - Zavjalov, E. L.

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - The tradeoff between parental effort and mating effort in male animals may be mediated by testosterone (T). The pattern of association between T and paternal care in birds is consistent with this hypothesis, while it is poorly studied and not universal for mammals. We used the correlation approach to test two predictions of T-mediated tradeoff hypothesis for a biparental vole, Microtus mandarinus: (1) that T levels in males decrease from before pair formation to after birth of the first litter and (2) that paternal responsiveness of males negatively correlates with their T levels. T сoncentrations were measured in fecal samples collected before pairing and then immediately before behavioral testing on day 5 after birth of the first litter. Both nonpaternal and low paternal males had high initial T that decreased after birth of pups, though the decrease was only significant in low paternal males. In highly paternal males, the initial T was low and did not change after birth. Our results support the predictions

AB - The tradeoff between parental effort and mating effort in male animals may be mediated by testosterone (T). The pattern of association between T and paternal care in birds is consistent with this hypothesis, while it is poorly studied and not universal for mammals. We used the correlation approach to test two predictions of T-mediated tradeoff hypothesis for a biparental vole, Microtus mandarinus: (1) that T levels in males decrease from before pair formation to after birth of the first litter and (2) that paternal responsiveness of males negatively correlates with their T levels. T сoncentrations were measured in fecal samples collected before pairing and then immediately before behavioral testing on day 5 after birth of the first litter. Both nonpaternal and low paternal males had high initial T that decreased after birth of pups, though the decrease was only significant in low paternal males. In highly paternal males, the initial T was low and did not change after birth. Our results support the predictions

KW - paternal behaviour

KW - voles

KW - testosterone

KW - trade-off

U2 - 10.1007/s10164-009-0154-z

DO - 10.1007/s10164-009-0154-z

M3 - Article

VL - 28

JO - Journal of Ethology

JF - Journal of Ethology

SN - 0289-0771

IS - 1

ER -