Biology of Reproduction, Vol 22, 164-172, Copyright © 1980 by Society for the Study of Reproduction

Genetic and Social Modifications of Mating Patterns of Mice

¹ Department of Biology, Colby College, Waterville, Maine 04901
² The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609
³ Institute of Genetics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G115JS, Scotland

An unexpectedly high proportion of fertile matings was found to occur during the first night after females of several substrains of BALB/c mice were paired with male mice. This synchrony of mating on the first night was enhanced by housing the females individually for 2 weeks prior to pairing. In contrast, a significantly higher proportion of females from most other strains mated on the third night after pairing. This latter pattern was also evident in the data from F₁ hybrids between SJL/Wt (a strain with a third night peak) and BALB/cWt, and between SJL/Wt and 2 other strains with third night peaks indicating that the tendency for third night mating is inherited in a dominant manner, whereas the tendency for first night mating is inherited in a recessive manner. Analysis of the mating patterns of the seven recombinant inbred (RI) strains derived from BALB/cBy and C57BL/6By showed that both first and third night progenitor mating tendencies were recovered among the RI strains giving further support to the hypothesis of a dominant mode of inheritance for the third night mating tendency, and a recessive mode of inheritance for the first night tendency.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported by research grants to AKC from the Natural Science Grant Committee of Colby College and by research grants HD-04083 (WKW) and AM-17947 (WGB) from NIH. JGMS was a NATO-SRC Senior Visiting Scientist and is grateful to the Wellcome Foundation for a travel grant. The Jackson Laboratory is fully accredited by the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care.