PhD student and lab member Anne Sabol published one of the chapters of her master thesis in Animal Behavior, titled "How does individual variation in sociality influence fitness in prairie voles?". Prairie voles vary substantially in their social behaviour, and this variation may carry consequences for individual fitness. Anne and her collaborators found that voles with an intermediate level of sociality had the highest mating success, and voles with intermediate sociality with all voles had higher reproductive success. Furthermore, males with an intermediate number of social connections had higher mean body mass. Therefore, it seems that intermediate levels of sociality was most favorable for fitness. Anne conducted this work during her master program at the University of Michigan, in the lab of Dr. Ben Dantzer. The paper was available online on 29 March (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.02.009). Congrats Anne!
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