Mice selected for age of puberty: reverse selection and reproductive characteristics

Previous investigations have hypothesized a link between regulation of population size in various rodent species and changes in allele frequencies for certain loci that exert their effects on particular behaviors or processes related to reproduction. Drickamer (1981a) has shown that age of first vaginal estrus can be shifted by artificial selection and that there is a relatively high heritability for this trait in laboratory Mus. This paper reports on two related experiments, one a test of reverse selection on strains of mice previously selected for early and late first vaginal estrus, and the other a compilation of data for a variety of traits related to reproduction for the original base stock and four artificially selected stocks. The original selection for early and late onset of puberty did not result in fixation of the trait-enough residual variation remained so that in eight generations of selection it was possible to significantly reverse the timing of first estrus. Traits related to reproduction including litter size, pup weight, survival of pups to 21 days, weight at 21 days, fertility and birth intervals all were not affected by the selection process across all five stocks tested. These results are discussed with regard to changes in puberty and generation time in Mus as a factor in population regulation.