The social behaviour of the house mouse is not rigidly fixed into species-specific patterns but is instead adaptable to the environmental conditions, such as the availability of food and space.[24][25] This adaptability allows house mice to inhabit diverse areas ranging from sandy dunes to apartment buildings.[24]
House mice have two forms of social behaviour, the expression of which depends on the environmental context. House mice in buildings and other urbanized areas with close proximity to humans are known as commensal.[24] Commensal mice populations often have an excessive food source resulting in high population densities and small home ranges. This causes a switch from territorial behaviour to a hierarchy of individuals.[24][26] When populations have an excess of food, there is less female-female aggression, which usually occurs to gain access to food or to prevent infanticide.[24] Male-male aggression
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occurs in commensal populations, mainly to defend female mates and protect a small territory.[24][25] The high level of male-male aggression, with a low female-female aggression level is common in polygamous populations.[27] The social unit of commensal house mouse populations generally consists of one male and two or more females, usually related.[27][28] These groups breed cooperatively, with the females communally nursing. This cooperative breeding and rearing by related females helps increase reproductive success. When no related females are present, breeding groups can form from non-related females.[28] In open areas such as shrubs and fields, the house mouse population is known as noncommensal.
These populations are often limited by water or food supply and have large territories.[25] Female-female aggression in the noncommensal house mouse populations is much higher, reaching a level generally attributed to free-ranging species. Male aggression is also higher in noncommensal populations. In commensal populations, males come into contact with other males quite frequently due to high population densities and aggression must be mediated or the risk of injury becomes too great.[24]
Both commensal and noncommensal house mouse males aggressively defend their territory and act to exclude all intruders. Males mark their territory by scent marking with urine. In marked territories, intruders showed significantly lower aggression than the territory residents.[25] House mice show a male-biased dispersal; males generally leave their birth sites and migrate to form new territories whereas females generally stay and are opportunistic breeders rather than
seasonal.[29]
Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, is a book that can be analyzed and broken down into a vast majority of themes. One of the predominant themes found in this book is loneliness. Many characters in this book are affected by loneliness and they all demonstrate it in one way or another throughout the book. Examples of these characters are Curley’s Wife, Crooks, and Candy.
When the mice moved to America the cats represented the nativists. The native born Americans pictured their country as a melting pot. A melting pot is a mixture of people of different cultures and races who blended together by abandoning their native languages and customs. The only problem was these new immigrants wanted to keep their cultural identities. The cats were the nativists who tried to force the mice into these cultures and beliefs.
The first area that will be compared is housing. In Of Mice and Men the housing is described by the following passage:
Sex the baby mice as soon as they are weaned. Separate the males into another cage (not the one with the father).
Intro: Charles Darwin’s natural selection comes to mind when viewing the aggressive behaviors in crickets. This interaction comes into play specifically when competition for resources, such as foods and females, are scarce. Thus, only the organism most fit in the environment would be allowed to survive and pass on its genes. Pioneers of animal behavior, pave the way to understanding the why animals act the way they act (von Frisch, 1967; Lorenz, 1952; and Tinbergen 1951). With further integration between different biological organizations, we see the rise of new possible research, especially in crickets (Wong & Hoffman, 2010). The house crickets, Acheta domesticus, would normally display little to no aggression between males because of their natural behavior to live in groups. But when isolated for a length of time, ag...
In the novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck uses stereotypes and discrimination to convey a message of how the characters feel. A lot of the stereotypes and clichés are just common beliefs of the times, but a few are situational. To quote a quite distinguished reader, "Characters are ‘trapped’- either by what others think of them, or by their situation." A lot of the character’s feelings about themselves and what others think of them will lead to loneliness.
“Of Mice and Men” takes place during the Great Depression, Crook displays how the African American community was treated at this time point, given how he was separate from the others and treated down upon. For instance when Lennie went in Crooks room, Crook explained to Lennie why he was separate from the others, “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black.” (Steinbeck Pg. 53) Not to mention how work was hard to achieve for everyone, and in the long run this led for a hard life for most. In contrast “To a Mouse” took place in Scotland, specifically during the winter time, which is linked to how the theme is presented throughout the poem. Considering winter plays an important role in this, both characters share the hardship and struggles anyone has to go through to survive, yet being distinct to each other. In either case the different settings in both of the stories are tied to how the theme and the concept was given throughout the allegories. Again we can use the message the authors gave us to reach to the conclusion of why the authors established the setting where they did, and how the theme is kept throughout the
.... They seem to be well adapted to making friends and playing with them nice.
Loneliness is the central theme in the novel Of Mice and Men. Many of the characters show signs of being lonely, some more than others. Loneliness haunts Crooks deep inside. Crooks accepts things the way they are though. Crooks does not talk to the other men and they do not talk to him. This causes the greatest amount of loneliness in Crooks out of all the characters. Rejection can cause most people to become crazy, as it
In this study, we analyze aggression in crayfish, because they are known to fight with each other, and they have a distinct ethogram from which to compare and contrast all of their behaviors (Moore 2007 and Wofford 2013). We seek to find out the affect of sex on agonistic interactions, and whether different ratios of between-gender interactions affect levels of aggression. It has been previously observed that male crayfish are usually dominant over females (Moore 2007). Additionally, male-male agonism is generally the most intense, while male-female and female-male interactions are less intense (Moore 2007). Since males are more aggressive than females, and male-male interactions are the most intense, we hypothesize that aggression levels vary by sex when fighting in groups of differing sexual ratios. Will males be less aggressive when outnumbered by females? Similarly, will males be more ag...
Elizabeth Cashdan addresses the question of territoriality among human forager groups, specifically comparing four Bushman groups. She argues that territoriality should occur only in places where the benefits will outweigh the costs. Introducing the scientific definition of territoriality in animals, she first claims that animals tend to be the most territorial when they have adequate food and other resources. It is when there is a severe lack of or abundance of resources that animals are not territorial. With a lack of food, territoriality tends to waste too much energy. In the case of an abundance of food, it is not worth defending that which is plentiful for animals. She points out predictability as another environmental factor: if a resource is unpredictable, then it is not economical to defend it. It is only worthwhile to defend a territory if there is high probability that the resources will still be available when they are wanted. However, the costs and benefits of being territorial not only depend on the environment, but also on the species and its characteristics.
Men want to protect their area of living so they reduce their competition by limiting the men they are surrounded by. Every time there was more guys in a scene than women, there was arguing about who should get what and why. For example, a guy set up a farmers market in the show right next to another man’s grocery store. The close proximity created competition between men and their areas. Just like when Dean was more protective of Rory when Jess moved into town. This behavior is similar midst the Gorillas. They tend to live with one adult male (even though they have been known to have more than one male in a group) and multiple females with their offspring (Cawthon). Male Gorillas are expected to leave their natal group, the group where an animal was born and raised, in order to keep the breeding selection diverse, but this also creates for a non-cohesive male group (Lewis, Jurmain, Kilgore 138). However, not ever monkey group operates like
Have you ever wonder why cats and rats are enemies? Well these two stories are legends but they give you an idea on why they are enemies . What I'm going to be Compare and Contrasting are the two stories Cat and Rat: The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac, and How Cats and Mice Became Enemies
2. For the most part, cats prefer to share their territory, indoors or out, with few
Lack of funding was the main reason the mouse's existence was in jeopardy. While working on the preliminary research and development of the mouse, Engelbart discovered that they could not afford to bring in outside experience and resources that were necessary for the project. The funds that he had...