Comparative studies of wild and domestic rats: Some difficulties in isolating the effects of genotype and environment

✍ Scribed by Richard K. Lore; Kevin J. Flannelly

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1981
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 270 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0096-140X
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-2337(1981)7:3<253::aid-ab2480070308>3.0.co;2-f

✦ Synopsis

Virtually all previous behavioral comparisons of wild and domestic rats indicate that many components of the wild variety's agonistic repertoire are either absent or much attenuated in domestic strains. A study by Barnett et a1 119791 published in this journal illustrates some of the procedural difficulties associated with comparative studies of this kind. Research in this area suffers from a failure to acknowledge the fact that developmental factors including age, previous social ex- perience, and physical aspects of the rearing environment play a surprisingly important role in the expression of aggression in this species.