Paternal imprinting of mating preferences between natural populations of house mice (Mus musculus domesticus)

Abstract

The evolutionary divergence of cues for mate recognition can contribute to early stages of population separation. We compare here two allopatric populations of house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) that have become separated about 3000 years ago. We have used paternity assignments in semi-natural environments to study the degree of mutual mate recognition according to population origin under conditions of free choice and overlapping generations. Our results provide insights into the divergence of mating cues, but also for the mating system of house mice. We find frequent multiple mating, occurrence of inbreeding and formation of extended family groups. In addition, many animals show strong mate fidelity, that is, frequent choice of the same mating partners in successive breeding cycles, indicating a role for familiarity in mating preference. With respect to population divergence, we find evidence for assortative mating, but only under conditions where the animals had time to familiarize themselves with mating partners from their own population. Most interestingly, the first-generation offspring born in the enclosure showed a specific mating pattern. Although matings between animals of hybrid population origin with animals of pure population origin should have occurred with equal frequency with respect to matching the paternal or maternal origin, paternal matching with mates from their own populations occurred much more often. Our findings suggest that paternally imprinted cues play a role in mate recognition between mice and that the cues evolve fast, such that animals of populations that are separated since not more than 3000 years can differentially recognize them.

A Role for Ultrasonic Vocalisation in Social Communication and Divergence of Natural Populations of the House Mouse (Mus musculus domesticus)

“…As such, we would predict greater complexity of communicative signals in units with more distinct social roles compared with those with fewer distinct social roles." This description of a complex social group is fully in line with the situation we find for wild mice living under semi-natural conditions [25]. Hence our inferences on communication complexity match well with this situation and support the prediction made by Freeberg et al [23].…”

“…We found indeed in our previous semi-natural environment experiments, using the same populations, that complex extended family structures arise, including multiple mating with kin and relatives, but also pair bonding over extended times [25]. Furthermore, it is known that house mice engage in communal nesting, which requires also a higher level social organization [53], [54].…”

“…In a previous study using mice from two natural populations from France and Germany, we found assortative patterns of mate choice according to their population origin [25]. Although it is known that olfactory cues play a major role in mate choice in mice [26] we speculated that USV divergence is an alternative mechanism to cause this differential population recognition.…”

Genome-Wide Quantitative Analysis of Histone H3 Lysine 4 Trimethylation in Wild House Mouse Liver: Environmental Change Causes Epigenetic Plasticity

“…The house mice used in our study ( Mus musculus domesticus ) were progenies of individuals captured in an area of a radius of 20 km around GPS location latitude: 50.71574, longitude: 6.916503 in 2007 [78]. House mice are not an endangered or protected species and there was no requirement for permission to catch mice in Germany at that time.…”

Divergence patterns of genic copy number variation in natural populations of the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) reveal three conserved genes with major population-specific expansions

“…If this level of recognition controls mate choice, it may lead to preferential mating with individuals from the same population and ultimately result in population divergence. Indeed, we previously found evidence for assortative mating in the FRA and GER populations; given the recent divergence of those populations, we proposed the rapid evolution of the recognition system (Montero et al 2013).…”