Abstract
The fine-branch niche is a natural setting found among the slender vines and terminal branches of shrubs and tree canopies. In this study, the authors designed two simulations of this setting for laboratory mice. Their main goal was to model phenotypic plasticity in a small, clawed mammal, in order to better understand the effect of a thin-branch arboreal setting on musculoskeletal growth and behavior of these animals. The authors exposed mice to the smaller climbing setting for limited amounts of time (e.g., 30 min) and used the larger setting to permanently house another group of mice. Mice in both the limited and continuous climbing groups succeeded at quadrupedal climbing among a complex of thin branch segments. This led the authors to postulate that similarly sized pre-primates that lacked the unique features of today's primates could potentially have exploited this niche. The mice housed in the continuous model remained healthy and showed no signs of aggression, leading the authors to suggest that animal care personnel could use similar models as forms of enrichment for laboratory mice.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Mercer University's animal care staff and IACUC members for helping to ensure these animal protocols were humane as well as effective. We also wish to thank Mark Hamrick, Brian Richmond and Kurt Branson for encouraging conversations in regard to this experimental model.
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Byron, C., Knight, W., Ladson, S. et al. Simulating the fine-branch arboreal niche and exercising mice to elicit above-branch quadrupedal grasping and climbing. Lab Anim 38, 369–374 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban1109-369
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/laban1109-369
