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Female mouse maturation: Effects of excreted and bladder urine from juvenile and adult males
Author(s) -
Drickamer Lee C.,
Murphy Robert X.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.420110110
Subject(s) - weanling , juvenile , house mice , endocrinology , sexual maturity , litter , medicine , pheromone , urine , sex organ , young adult , biology , adult male , population , physiology , zoology , ecology , genetics , environmental health
A sequence of 4 experiments examined the effects of prepubertal and adult males on the sexual maturation of young female house mice. The results support 3 conclusions: (1) the presence of a prepubertal male or of urine from prepubertal males does not affect the timing of sexual maturation in young female house mice; (2) the maturation‐accelerating pheromone produced by adult males is present in the bladder urine of intact adult males but is absent from both excreted and bladder urine of castrated males; and (3) young females caged with 7 prepubertal males or with a castrated adult male mature earlier than control females caged alone. Results indicating that the presence of a castrated male leads to earlier sexual maturation of young female mice differ from previous findings. A possible explanation for this contradictory result is based on the ability of young weanling female mice to acclimatize and thermoregulate when separated from the dam and litter‐mates. A model for density‐feedback population regulation in house mice involving pheromones produced by males and females is presented.