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Nursing of own and foster offspring by Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens)

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Abstract

From 1995 through 2005, I studied nursing among Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens) living under natural conditions at Bryce Canyon National Park, UT, USA. I observed 850 aboveground nursings, which involved 122 mothers and 248 juveniles from 134 litters. Most of the mothers that nursed aboveground were middle-aged, and most nursing juveniles had been coming aboveground for 1–3 weeks. Most nursings involved a single juvenile, lasted 1–10 min, and occurred between 1800 hours and 2000 hours. Seventy-five percent of nursings (598/796) involved a mother suckling her own juvenile offspring; the other 24.9% (198/796) involved a mother suckling another mother’s offspring (i.e., communal nursing). Communal nursings involved juveniles of the home territory, and many communal nursings (74/198 = 37.4%) involved close kin such as half-siblings, grandoffspring, full-nieces, and full-nephews; other communal nursings (37/198 = 18.7%) involved more distant kin such as full-second cousins and full-third cousins. Of seven hypotheses that might explain the evolution of communal nursing, evidence supports the importance of two: elevated inclusive fitness via indirect selection and communal nursing as a cost of coloniality.

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Acknowledgments

For financial assistance, I thank the Denver Zoological Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, and the University of Maryland. For help with the manuscript, I thank Dan Blumstein, Gerald Wilkinson, and two anonymous referees. For help with observing nursing of own and foster offspring, I thank my research assistants from 1995 through 2005, and I especially thank Elaine Bond, Kristin Cannon, Lili DeBarbieri, Sarah Druy, Theo Manno, and Alyssa Taylor. My research complies with current laws of the USA and was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

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    John L. Hoogland

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Hoogland, J.L. Nursing of own and foster offspring by Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 63, 1621–1634 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-009-0763-0

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