Skip to main content
Download PDF

Food resource allocation patterns in lactating females in a long-term selection experiment for litter size in mice

Genetics Selection Evolution volume 34, Article number: 83 (2002) Cite this article

Abstract

Resource allocation patterns, as quantified by residual food intake (RFI), and the consequences for offspring development were investigated during lactation in 96 females of a mouse line selected for 104 generations for high litter size at birth (S-line) and in 87 females of a non-selected control line (C-line). Litters of 45 C-line dams (Cs) and 48 S-line dams (Ss) were standardised (s) at birth; other dams (ns) supported total number of pups born (Cns and Sns, respectively). RFI during lactation was significantly lower in Sns-dams than in C-line dams and Sns-dams. After weaning Sns-dams seemed to be able to restore the negative resource situation. Sns-pups were about 25% less mature than Cns-pups at all times. Maturity was similar for Cs- and Ss-pups from 2 d in lactation on, and about 18% and 53% higher than Cns- and Sns-pups. The pre-weaning mortality rate was significantly higher in Sns-litters (35.6 ± 2.76) than in Cns-litters (4.95 ± 2.23). The results suggest that S-line dams allocated considerably more resources to maintenance of offspring than C-line dams. This was insufficient to provide the offspring with an adequate amount of resources, resulting in reduced pup development and increased pre-weaning mortality rates.

(To access the full article, please see PDF)

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Area de Producció Animal, Centre UdL-IRTA, Alcalde Rovira Roure, 177, 25198, Lleida, Spain

    Wendy M. Rauw

  2. PIC Deutschland GmbH, P.O. Box 1630, D-24826, Schleswig, Germany

    Pieter W. Knap & Petronella Luiting

  3. Animal Nutrition Group, Wageningen Institute of Animal Science, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Martinus W.A. Verstegen

Authors
  1. Wendy M. Rauw
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pieter W. Knap
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Martinus W.A. Verstegen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Petronella Luiting
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wendy M. Rauw.

Rights and permissions

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rauw, W.M., Knap, P.W., Verstegen, M.W. et al. Food resource allocation patterns in lactating females in a long-term selection experiment for litter size in mice. Genet Sel Evol 34, 83 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1186/1297-9686-34-1-83

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1297-9686-34-1-83

Keywords

Genetics Selection Evolution

ISSN: 1297-9686