Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Control Of Brain Morphology In A Eusocial Mammal, Geert De Vries, M. M. Holmes, G. J. Rosen, C. L. Jordan, B. D. Goldman, N. G. Forger

Geert De Vries

Social status impacts reproductive behavior in diverse vertebrate species, but little is known about how it affects brain morphology. We explore this in the naked mole-rat, a species with the most rigidly organized reproductive hierarchy among mammals. Naked mole-rats live in large, subterranean colonies where breeding is restricted to a single female and small number of males. All other members of the colony, known as subordinates, are reproductively suppressed. Subordinates can become breeders if removed from the colony and placed with an opposite sex partner, but in nature most individuals never attain reproductive status. We examined the brains of breeding …