大熊猫母性行为培驯

圈养大熊猫初产母兽弃仔和抚育行为不当是导致幼仔死亡的主要原因之一。针对这种情况 ,从 1 998～ 2 0 0 0年 ,分别采用幼仔模型、尿液、叫声录音、实体和乳汁等多种刺激信号 ,对 1只弃仔的雌性大熊猫 (谱系号 :446)母性行为培训的结果表明 ,首先采用幼仔模型、尿液、叫声录音和乳汁等多种信号的刺激 ,有助于弃仔的初产母兽再接受其幼仔。进一步对母兽抚育行为的培训 ,其母性行为逐年增强 ,并最终掌握各项育幼技能 ,使幼仔存活率得到显著提高。     

哺乳动物基础代谢率的主要影响因素

综述了影响哺乳动物基础代谢率的主要因素, 包括体重、系统发育、食性、气候和栖息地、季节、生活习性和繁殖, 以及激素、器官、线粒体和质子漏的理化特征等, 并对这些因素可能的作用机理进行了简要的分析。     

哺乳动物的冬眠及其影响因素

冬眠不仅是生物学家研究的热点问题,也是其他领域科学家关注的焦点问题之一。结合最近国外的一些研究结果,阐述了哺乳动物冬眠的定义、冬眠期间的行为和生理表现以及影响冬眠的因素,同时也展望了冬眠在未来科学和医学领域中的价值。     

哺乳动物胚泡着床及影响因素

哺乳动物胚泡着床是生殖过程中的关键环节。受精卵经过早期发育形成了胚泡，胚泡脱去透明带后，经定位、粘附、滋养层侵入，植入到子宫内膜中，同时母体子宫内膜发生蜕膜化控制植入的程度，最终完成着床过程。着床过程受多种因素的影响，主要因素有：母体子宫内膜和胚泡发育的同步化，母体的激素环境，胚泡分泌的激素，母体子宫的接受性及局部免疫保护作用。     

大熊猫母性行为培训

圈养大熊猫初产母兽弃仔和抚育行为不当是导致幼仔死亡的主要原因之一。针对这种情况,从1998－2000年,分别采用幼仔模型、尿液、叫声录音、实体和乳汁等多种刺激信号,对1只弃仔的雌性大熊猫（谱系号：446）母性行为培训的结果表明,首先采用幼仔模型、尿液、叫声录音和乳汁等多种信号的刺激,有助于弃仔的初产母兽再接受其幼仔。进一步对母兽抚育行为的培训,其母性行为逐年增强,并最终掌握各项育幼技能,使幼仔存活率得到显著提高。     

哺乳动物精子发生过程中的细胞凋亡及其影响因素

睾丸生殖细胞凋亡是维持精子发生动态平衡,限制生精上皮生殖细胞数量的一个重要生理机制,受多种因素调控。本简要叙述精子发生过程中细胞凋亡的激素调节、基因调控及其他理化等因素的影响及其作用机制。     

拉布拉多犬的母性行为水平对幼犬胆量的影响

母性行为是动物以维持幼崽的生存及生理健康为主要目的的一种基本行为,母性行为作为重要的早期经历对动物的个体发展有深远影响。动物的行为在时间和环境中具有一致性,多个行为特征的一致性加权被称为气质特征,气质特征的差异是犬(Canis lupus familiaris)能否顺利通过培训成为导盲犬的决定性因素。其中,胆量是决定导盲犬培训成功与否的重要气质特征。本研究以中国导盲犬大连培训基地的拉布拉多种犬及幼犬为研究对象,探究母性行为水平对幼犬胆量的影响。本研究通过视频观察记录拉布拉多犬哺乳期前21 d的母性行为变量时长,对在哺乳区内、身体接触、哺乳和舔舐幼犬4项变量进行主成分分析后将7只实验犬分为母性行为高水平与低水平两组。对两组犬生产的共54只幼犬于6 ~ 8周龄时进行幼犬胆量行为测试,根据胆量行为测试的评分标准对幼犬的行为表现进行评分,统计分析母性行为高水平组与低水平组其幼犬的胆量是否存在差异。本研究结果表明,母性行为低水平组的幼犬在胆量测试中面对陌生环境、突然出现的响声刺激、突然打开的雨伞刺激以及陌生人的游戏邀请时均表现出更大的胆量。在被动测试中,母性行为低水平组幼犬的探索潜伏时长显著短于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.05),探索范围显著大于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.05),紧张程度极显著低于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.01);在金属响声测试中,母性行为低水平组幼犬的惊吓反应(P < 0.01)和紧张程度(P < 0.01)均极显著低于母性行为高水平组幼犬;在雨伞测试中,母性行为低水平组幼犬的紧张程度显著低于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.05);在玩具测试中,母性行为低水平组幼犬的玩耍兴趣显著高于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.05),紧张程度显著低于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.05);在斜坡隧道测试中,母性行为低水平组幼犬的紧张程度显著低于母性行为高水平组幼犬(P < 0.05),通过斜坡的用时短于母性行为高水平组幼犬,但经统计检验无显著差异(P > 0.05)。本研究的结论为低母性行为水平带给幼犬强度适当的早期生活压力,使幼犬面对新环境刺激时表现出更好的适应能力和较大的胆量。本研究为工作犬种犬的筛选提出新的建议：母性行为水平低的种犬对幼犬胆量的发展有更好的影响。     

圈养大熊猫催产素水平与母性行为之间关系

Maintaining a good cub-rearing relationship is of great significance for the healthy development of newborn giant panda cubs. Oxytocin plays a key role in this cub-rearing relationship development during the breeding period. To investigate the relationship between oxytocin levels and maternal behavior, we sampled the maternal behavior of 6 adult female giant pandas (3 in lactation group, 3 in non-lactation group) at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding from June to September 2019 by using the focal sampling method, and tested the urine oxytocin level of each individuals by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The results showed that the oxytocin levels were significantly higher in the lactation group (278. 86 pg/mg ±44. 42 pg/mg) than in the non-lactation group. For the two types of breastfeeding groups, the level of oxytocin in the multiparous female pandas (185. 64 pg/mg ±44. 61 pg/mg) was significantly lower than that in the primiparous female pandas (465. 30 pg/mg ±82. 39 pg/mg). Compared with the primiparous female pandas, the multiparous female pandas had more embracing cub behavior (77. 45% ±1. 24%) and feeding behavior (15. 22% ±1. 62%), but less licking cub (14. 26% ±0. 91%) and position adjustment behavior (1. 69% ±0. 29%). Finally, we found the licking cub behavior was significantly positively correlated with the oxytocin level in the lactation group, and the embracing cub behavior was significantly negatively correlated with the oxytocin level in the lactation group. The results indicate that primiparous female pandas show more maternal behavior, less individual behavior and higher oxytocin levels. The results of this study suggest that the different reactions of oxytocin in the two types of giant panda females may help to improve the refined and differentiated breeding techniques for captive giant pandas in the future.     

哺乳动物最大代谢率的研究进展

最大代谢率（Maximum metabolic rate,MMR)是动物代谢的生理有限。本阐述了其有关概念,测定方法,发育过程中的变化,两种不同方法导致的MMR及其得验性,制约因子,影响因素（包括个体大小,系统发生,环境温度,海拔梯度,寄生虫与病毒）,与非颤抖性产热（Nn-shivering thermogenesis,NST)和基础代谢率（Basal metabolic rate,BMR)的关系,以及其未来的研究方向。其中NMR和BMR的关系涉及到了内温性进化的呼吸能力模型,介绍了相关的生化基础及验证。     

北京市延庆区哺乳动物多样性、 分布及影响因素

2017和2018年,综合样线调查法、红外相机法、样方笼捕法、洞穴调查法和访问调查法五种方法对北京市延庆区哺乳动物多样性及分布进行调查,并分析了影响其多度与分布的因素。本次调查结果显示,北京市延庆区有哺乳动物7目15科21种。从相对丰富度指数(RAI)来看,野猪(Sus scrofa)占绝对优势(28.27%),其次猪獾(Arctonyx collaris)(21.47%)、亚洲狗獾(Meles leucurus)(13.79%),最少的是山东小麝鼩(Crocidura shantungensis)和东北鼢鼠(Myospalax psilurus)仅为0.17%。从分布上来看,野猪分布最广,占全部调查网格数的84.21%;其次是猪獾和亚洲狗獾,各占73.68%;山东小麝鼩等6个物种各只在1个网格中记录到,占全部网格的5.26%。所有工作区域中,延庆区西南的松山保护区及野鸭湖保护区物种丰富度最高,东北部的水头沟和九眼楼风景区物种丰富度最低。当前威胁哺乳动物多样性的因素主要是"水源情况"和"人类活动",为更好地保护该区域哺乳动物多样性,建议:(1)在缺水的区域进行人工引水或建立永久补水点;(2)在非保护区加强对野生动物的保护宣传,以减少旅游登山等对野生哺乳动物的干扰。     

Effects of domestication on brain structure and behavior in mammals

The domestication of mammals has led to a reduction of brain size in general. There are, however, species-specific differences concerning the degree of mass decrease. Certain parts of the brains are also involved to different degrees but altogether rather unique effects are characteristic for domesticated mammals at different evolutionary levels. These changes in brain size and proportions are compared with behavioral changes due to domestication. They are valued as a result of artificial selection according to human demands, and thus, in zoological terms, they are interpreted as intraspecific adaptations to the special «ecological niche» of domestication.     

社群学习对植食性鸟类和哺乳动物觅食行为的作用

社群学习是动物的一种可塑性行为表现型式。综述了社群学习对植食性鸟类和哺乳动物觅食行为的作用,并述评了其学习机制。社群同伴对动物个体觅食地点、时间和取食方式均有影响,母体摄食的食物信息可通过胎盘和乳汁显著影响幼体的食物选择。动物通过观察学习、嗅闻学习以及味觉厌恶学习,不仅能更快找到食物资源,提高觅食效率,而且能有效降低中毒与被捕食的风险,从而提高其适合度。     

Of mammals and milk: how maternal stress affects nursing offspring

1. A large body of research shows that maternal stress during an offspring’s early life can impact its phenotype in both the short and long term. In the Vertebrata, most research has been focused on maternal stress during the prenatal period. However, the postnatal period is particularly important in mammals because maternal milk provides a conduit by which maternal hormones secreted in response to stressors (glucocorticoids, GCs) can reach offspring. Moreover, lactation outlasts gestation in many species.
2. Though GCs were first detected in milk over 40 years ago, few studies have explored how they affect nursing offspring, and no reviews have been written on how maternal stress affects nursing offspring in the natural world.
3. We discuss the evolution of milk and highlight its importance in each of the three mammalian lineages: monotremes (subclass Monotremata), marsupials (infraclass Marsupialia), and eutherians (infraclass Placentalia). Most research on the effects of milk GCs on offspring has been focused on eutherians, but monotremes and marsupials rely on their mothers’ milk for a proportionally longer period of time, and so research on these taxa may yield more insight.
4. We show that GCs are important for milk production, both during an individual nursing bout and over the entire lactation period, and review evidence of GCs moving from maternal blood to milk, and eventually to nursing offspring. We examine evidence from rodents and primates of associations between GC levels in lactating females (either blood or milk) and offspring behaviour and growth rates. We discuss ways that maternal stress may impact these offspring phenotypes outside of milk GCs, such as changes to: (1) milk output, (2) other milk constituents (e.g. macronutrients, growth factors, cytokines), and (3) maternal care behaviour.
5. Critical to understanding the fitness impacts of elevated maternal GC levels during lactation is to place this within the context of the natural environment. Species-specific traits and natural histories will help us to understand why such maternal stress produces different offspring phenotypes that equip them to cope with and succeed in the environment they are about to enter.

     

小型哺乳动物的母体效应及其在种群调节中的作用

母体效应是指双亲的表型影响其后代表型的直接效应。它是子代对环境异质性的一种表型反应,亦是进化动力的一个重要来源,还可能与小型哺乳动物种群调节机制有关。以小型哺乳动物为例,介绍了母体效应的概念及其产生和发展过程,以及影响母体效应的营养和非营养因素,特别强调了光周期和激素的作用。在种群水平上,对度量母体效应的备选指标进行了评价,认为种群内个体的平均体重能较好地代表种群质量的高低;概述了衰老母体效应假说的主要内容及其在小型哺乳动物种群动态调节中的作用,即在种群数量的周期性波动过程中,母体质量的变化会影响后代的生殖和存活,甚至持续达2～3个世代,它与由种群年龄结构偏移所导致的衰老效应共同起作用,可使某些小型哺乳动物种群处于低数量期。本文还对母体效应的进化适应意义进行丁阐述。     

Convergent maternal care strategies in ungulates and macropods

Mammals show extensive interspecific variation in the form of maternal care. Among ungulates, there is a dichotomy between species in which offspring follow the mother ("following" strategy) versus species in which offspring remain concealed ("hiding" strategy). Here we reveal that the same dichotomy exists among macropods (kangaroos, wallabies and allies). We test three traditional adaptive explanations and one new life history hypothesis, and find very similar patterns among both ungulates and macropods. The three traditional explanations that we tested were that a "following" strategy is associated with (1) open habitat, (2) large mothers, and (3) gregariousness. Our new life-history hypothesis is that a "following strategy" is associated with delayed weaning, and thus with the "slow" end of the slow-fast mammalian life-history continuum, because offspring devote resources to locomotion rather than rapid growth. Our comparative test strongly supports the habitat structure hypothesis and provides some support for this new delayed weaning hypothesis for both ungulates and macropods. We propose that sedentary young in closed habitats benefit energetically by having milk brought to them. In open habitats, predation pressure will select against hiding. Followers will suffer slower growth to independence. Taken together, therefore, our results provide the first quantitative evidence that macropods and ungulates are convergent with respect to interspecific variation in maternal care strategy. In both clades, differences between species in the form of parental care are due to a similar interaction between habitat, social behavior, and life history.     

MPOA cytotoxic lesions and maternal behavior in the rat: effects of midpubertal lesions on maternal behavior and the role of ovarian hormones in maturation of MPOA control of maternal behavior

Small neurotoxin lesions in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) block maternal behavior (MB) in adults but large lesions are required to produce the same effect in juvenile rats (23-27 days of age). To study the maturation of MPOA control of MB, in Experiment I, we compared the effects of small versus large neurotoxin MPOA lesions at midpuberty (38 days of age) on MB. Midpubertal females with large MPOA lesions showed severe impairment in MB affecting retrieving, crouching, and nest building, but 85% of females with small MPOA lesions exhibited all components of MB and performed like control females without MPOA lesions. To study the role of ovarian hormones during puberty on the maturation of MPOA mediation of MB (Experiment IIA), females were ovariectomized either before or after puberty and small MPOA cytotoxic lesions were made at 53 days of age. At 60 days of age both groups showed similar deficits in MB which indicated that the maturation of the MPOA mediation of MB is not dependent on pubertal ovarian hormones. In Experiment IIB, we administered estradiol benzoate (sc) and this overcame the deficit in MB after small MPOA lesions in females that had been deprived of estrogen for shorter periods (30 days) but had not been deprived for longer periods (60 days). In addition, ovary-intact females with circulating estrogen and small lesions in the MPOA at 53 days of age did not show deficits in MB.     

Hormonal and experiential predictors of infant survivorship and maternal behavior in a monogamous primate (Callicebus cupreus)

To better understand the roles that hormones and experience play in infant survival and maternal behavior in a biparental primate species, we analyzed urinary estrone (E(1)C) and pregnanediol glucuronide (PdG) from 24 socially housed titi monkey (Callicebus cupreus) females over 54 pregnancies (N = 1,430 samples). Pregnancies were categorized according to whether the infant survived (N = 35) or not (N = 19), and by maternal parity (primiparous: N = 9; multiparous: N = 45). Mothers of infants that survived had a significantly greater drop in PdG from the third trimester to the first week postpartum than mothers of infants that did not survive. Multiparous mothers had a greater increase in PdG from the first to the third trimester as well as greater increases in the E(1)C:PdG ratio from the first to the third trimester and from the third trimester to the first week postpartum. There were positive relationships between third trimester PdG and maternal carrying and nursing during the first week postpartum, and between maternal age and carrying during the infant's first month of life. There was a negative correlation between maternal age and PdG during the third trimester. These results suggest that elevated progesterone during late pregnancy followed by progesterone withdrawal immediately following parturition is associated with greater probability of infant survivorship and maternal behavior in this species, and that older females engage in more postpartum maternal care.     

Centromere repositioning in mammals

The evolutionary history of chromosomes can be tracked by the comparative hybridization of large panels of bacterial artificial chromosome clones. This approach has disclosed an unprecedented phenomenon: 'centromere repositioning', that is, the movement of the centromere along the chromosome without marker order variation. The occurrence of evolutionary new centromeres (ENCs) is relatively frequent. In macaque, for instance, 9 out of 20 autosomal centromeres are evolutionarily new; in donkey at least 5 such neocentromeres originated after divergence from the zebra, in less than 1 million years. Recently, orangutan chromosome 9, considered to be heterozygous for a complex rearrangement, was discovered to be an ENC. In humans, in addition to neocentromeres that arise in acentric fragments and result in clinical phenotypes, 8 centromere-repositioning events have been reported. These 'real-time' repositioned centromere-seeding events provide clues to ENC birth and progression. In the present paper, we provide a review of the centromere repositioning. We add new data on the population genetics of the ENC of the orangutan, and describe for the first time an ENC on the X chromosome of squirrel monkeys. Next-generation sequencing technologies have started an unprecedented, flourishing period of rapid whole-genome sequencing. In this context, it is worth noting that these technologies, uncoupled from cytogenetics, would miss all the biological data on evolutionary centromere repositioning. Therefore, we can anticipate that classical and molecular cytogenetics will continue to have a crucial role in the identification of centromere movements. Indeed, all ENCs and human neocentromeres were found following classical and molecular cytogenetic investigations.     

Factors influencing the distribution of medium‐sized ground‐dwelling mammals in southeastern mainland Australia

Abstract The forage diggings of medium‐sized ground‐dwelling mammals (bandicoots and potoroos) were recorded over two seasons across 136 forested study sites, representing a stratified sample of the climatic, geological and topographic features of far south‐eastern mainland Australia. Diggings, presumably left by bandicoots, were recorded at a total of 42 sites, and those of potoroos at 27 sites. Statistical models were developed for the occurrence of these diggings, based on environmental attributes measured for each site. At a landscape scale, mean minimum temperature of the coldest month was an important explanatory variable for both groups of animals, with likelihood of their occurrence increasing with increasing temperature during that period. More locally, soil fertility and time since last fire also influenced the occurrence of bandicoot and potoroo diggings, while density of ground cover was additionally important in explaining the occurrence of bandicoot diggings. Bandicoot and potoroo diggings were more likely to occur with decreasing soil fertility and increasing time since fire, while occurrence of bandicoot diggings also increased with increasing density of ground cover. The possible management implications of our findings for conservation of medium‐sized ground‐dwelling mammals in multiple‐use forests are discussed.