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Do newborn domestic rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus compete for thermally advantageous positions in the litter huddle?

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Abstract

Competition among mammalian siblings for scarce resources can be severe. Whereas research to date has focused on competition for the mother’s milk, the young of many (particularly altricial) species might also be expected to compete for thermally favorable positions within the nest, den, or litter huddle. We investigated this in newborn pups of the European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus, a species in which the altricial young are not brooded by the mother, and in which competition for milk is severe. In eight unculled litters (N = 86 pups) of a domestic chinchilla strain, we calculated huddling indexes for individual pups on postnatal days 2–5 as a measure of the degree of insulation they received from littermates. Pups maintained almost constant physical contact with the litter huddle. They performed brief but frequent rooting and climbing behaviors, which usually improved their huddling index, interspersed with longer periods of quiescence during which their huddling index declined. As expected, we found a significant positive relation between pups’ mean huddling index and body temperature. Unexpectedly, however, we did not find a relation between huddling index and pups’ birth weight, survival, milk intake, or efficiency of converting milk to body mass. We conclude that rather than competing for thermally advantageous positions within the huddle newborn rabbits share out thermally advantageous positions as they move in a continual dynamic flow through it. Thus, in newborn rabbits, competition for the mother’s milk exists alongside mutual “cooperative” benefits of littermate presence.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by grants from CONACyT (25889-N; 124936; 153843), PAPIIT (IN 217100), and PROMEP (UATlax 149; 103.5/04/2849/UATLAXCA-26). We thank Carolina Rojas, Laura García, and Cecilia Cuatianquiz for excellent technical assistance, Hans Distel for help with data analysis, Gerhard Dierlich and Arturo Estrada-Torres for statistical advice, Fritz Trillmich for valuable comments on the manuscript, and Hugh Drummond, Constantino Macías García, and other members of Los Lunáticos for valuable discussion. Throughout the study, animals were kept and treated according to the guidelines for the treatment of animals in research of the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and according to the current laws of Mexico.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Tlaxcala de Biología de la Conducta, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, Mexico

    Amando Bautista & Esmeralda García-Torres

  2. Centro Tlaxcala de Biologia de la Conducta, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Tlaxcala, Mexico

    Margarita Martínez-Gómez

  3. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, DF, Mexico

    Robyn Hudson

Authors
  1. Amando Bautista
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  2. Esmeralda García-Torres
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  3. Margarita Martínez-Gómez
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  4. Robyn Hudson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robyn Hudson.

Additional information

Communicated by A. Schulte-Hostedde

This contribution is part of the special issue “Sibling competition and cooperation in mammals” (guest editors: Robyn Hudson and Fritz Trillmich).

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Bautista, A., García-Torres, E., Martínez-Gómez, M. et al. Do newborn domestic rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus compete for thermally advantageous positions in the litter huddle?. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62, 331–339 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0420-4

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