Social interactions among rodent conspecifics: a review of experimental paradigms

The authors suggest that kin selection theory offers a different perspective from which to examine social interactions among rodent conspecifics. Paradigms designed to investigate various interactions among rodent conspecifics are presented, and include simple affiliative behaviors, social facilitation, and cooperation. It is established that many species of rodents are appropriately social to use as subjects under investigation in research which focuses on topics such as kin selection. Studies reporting positive results as well as some reporting negative or inconclusive results have been presented for the purpose of informing the reader under which conditions we might expect specific social behaviors to occur. It is concluded that a combined method of a sociobiological perspective using established experimental procedures will offer unique opportunities for the investigation of specific predictions suggested by kin selection theory.