From U of Muenster: Infantilized behavior in wild cavies

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21761409

Dev Psychobiol. 2011 Sep;53(6):575-84. doi: 10.1002/dev.20585. Epub 2011 Jul 14.
The social environment during pregnancy and lactation shapes the behavioral and hormonal profile of male offspring in wild cavies.
Siegeler K, Sachser N, Kaiser S.
Source
Department of Behavioural Biology, University of Muenster, Badestraße 13, D-48149 Muenster, Germany. katja@siegeler.de.

Abstract
In mammals, the development of individual behavioral profiles can be influenced considerably by social factors during early phases of life. In guinea pigs, for instance, sons whose mothers experienced social instability during pregnancy and lactation show an infantilized behavioral profile. Here, we examined whether the same phenomenon exists also in wild cavies, the ancestor of the domestic guinea pig. Using a comparable experimental approach, our results revealed a similar behavioral infantilization as well as a delayed gonadal development of sons when their mothers had lived under unstable social conditions. These data show clearly that the behavioral and hormonal profile of male wild cavies can be shaped significantly by the social environment in which their mothers lived during pregnancy and lactation. Hence the underlying mechanisms cannot have been brought about by artificial selection during domestication. Rather, they represent maternal effects evolved through natural selection adjusting the offspring to the current environmental conditions. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 53:575-584, 2011.