Growing into Care: Development of Alloparental Behavior Across Age and Social Environment in African Striped Mice

Abstract

Parental care plays a pivotal role in ensuring proper physical and social development of altricial offspring. While mammalian maternal care is universal and comparatively well characterized, paternal care is uncommon and remains poorly understood. The African striped mouse (Rhabdomys pumilio) presents a powerful model for examining the mechanisms of paternal care due to their biparental nature and social flexibility. Recent work in our lab demonstrated that Agouti expression within the medial preoptic area (MPOA) of striped mice integrates environmental cues to regulate paternal behavior. However, it remains unknown how the pattern of gene expression changes across development, and whether adult social environments, such as density, shape signaling in ways that influence caring behavior. Here, using qPCR and pup interaction assay to quantify gene expression and behavioral phenotypes, I investigate the developmental trajectories of Agouti and its potential hormonal modulators, and how population density influences its expression to shape parenting behavior across development and social environments. While candidate hormonal modulators examined did not exhibit a direct correlation with Agouti expression pattern across development, our findings indicate that social conditions, particularly housing and density, are strongly linked to Agouti expression and caregiving behaviors. This work suggests that socially driven shifts in Agouti may represent a key mechanism by which environmental conditions influence behavioral phenotype.