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Communal nesting is explained by subsequent mating rather than kinship or thermoregulation in the Siberian flying squirrel

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Abstract

Research on group living in animals is concentrated on highly social species, but studying less social species may hint at the factors possibly leading to the evolution of increased sociality. Thermoregulation is often thought to explain communal nesting in solitarily breeding mammals but also other factors may be involved. For example, it is observed that even solitary species may have cryptic kin cooperation. We studied factors affecting communal nesting in the Siberian flying squirrel. Flying squirrels breed solitarily but, similar to most other rodents, adults may sometimes huddle in groups. Communal nesting in flying squirrels was most frequent during winter and autumn, but also occurred during other seasons. This pattern was explained by the breeding season, which took place in the spring–summer, when communal nesting was less common. Neither monthly temperature, after accounting for breeding season, nor daily temperatures in winter explained communal nesting. Group size was small, two to three individuals. In most cases the group was a pair consisting of unrelated male and female, possibly indicating that group formation was related to mating behavior. This study contributes to the understanding of mammalian group formation in two major ways. First, our study contributes to the understanding of the role of relatedness in rodent group formation, demonstrating a case where close relatedness is not related to group formation. Second, our study indicates that in a solitarily breeding, rodent huddling may be more driven by other factors than temperature.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mikko Hannonen, Rune Jakobsson, Antero Mäkelä, and Markus Sundell for helping in the field; Kata Husman and Guillaume Blanchet for helping with data organization; and Eric Le Tortorec for helping with the figure and commenting on the manuscript. The study was financially supported by the Finnish Ministries of Environment and Education, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Kone Foundation, the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, the Societas Pro Fauna et Flora Fennica, the Svensk-Österbottniska Samfundet, the Vuokon Luonnonsuojelusäätiö, the Oskar Öflund Foundation, and the Academy of Finland (grant number 259562 to VS).

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Experiments comply with the current laws of Finland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Section of Ecology, University of Turku, Turku, FI-20014, Finland

    Vesa Selonen

  2. Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Ilpo K. Hanski

  3. Department of Biology, University of Oulu, FI-90014, Oulu, Finland

    Ralf Wistbacka

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  1. Vesa Selonen
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  2. Ilpo K. Hanski
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  3. Ralf Wistbacka
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Correspondence to Vesa Selonen.

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Communicated by C. Soulsbury

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Selonen, V., Hanski, I.K. & Wistbacka, R. Communal nesting is explained by subsequent mating rather than kinship or thermoregulation in the Siberian flying squirrel. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 68, 971–980 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1709-8

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