Influence of kinship and familiarity on the social and reproductive behaviour of female mongolian gerbils

A series of studies focused on kin discrimination and inbreeding avoidance in female Mongolian gerbils. Kin discrimination was examined in a novel free choice test, as well as by the more traditional reproductive test. The former entailed an ethological analysis of the behaviour of female gerbils in either a binary or a multiple choice with different males while the latter involved the pairing of females with different classes of male gerbils. The binary choice experiment, during which a female chose between a male Sibling Raised Together and a male Non-Sibling Raised Apart, showed that female choice was biased by individual male cues other than kinship. The multiple choice experiment, during which a female chose between Sibling Raised Together, Non-Sibling Raised Apart, Non-Sibling Raised Together and Sibling Raised Apart males, revealed that female gerbils expressed a preference based on relatedness. The pairing of Sibling Raised Together, Non-Sibling Raised Apart and Sibling Raised Apart animals did not reveal any tendency to avoid inbreeding. Taken together, these results show that female gerbils are capable of kin discrimination on the base of kin per se, even though they did not show this ability in all the experimental contexts. This highlights the exquisite sensitivity of social assessment in female Mongolian gerbils, and points towards new investigations on inbreeding avoidance in this species.