ArticleBehavioural processes2020
Prairie vole offspring only prefer mothers over fathers when mothers are a unique resource, yet fathers are the primary source of variation in parental care.
Article in Behavioural processes, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Demographic History of a Prairie Vole (Microtus ochrogaster) Breeding Colony (2004-2020).Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2026Article
- A Demographic History of a Prairie Vole (bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Single-Cell Peptide Profiling to Distinguish Stickleback Ecotypes with Divergent Breeding Behavior.Journal of proteome research · 2025Article
- Dynamic duos: learning to care as a pair in the biparental prairie vole (Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Unraveling sex differences in maternal and paternal care impacts on social behaviors and neurobiological responses to early-life adversity.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2025Review
- Maladaptive cardiac and behavioral reactivity to repeated vicarious stress exposure in socially bonded male prairie vole siblings.Autonomic neuroscience : basic & clinical · 2024Article
- Hearing ability of prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster).The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2024Article
- Father's care uniquely influences male neurodevelopment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Motherhood and DREADD manipulation of the nucleus accumbens weaken established pair bonds in female prairie voles.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- Plasticity in parental behavior and vasopressin: responses to co-parenting, pup age, and an acute stressor are experience-dependent.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Behavioral trajectories of aging prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster): Adapting behavior to social context wanes with advanced age.PloS one · 2022Article
- Multi-Level Effects Driving Cognitive and Behavioral Variability among Prairie Voles: Insights into Reproductive Decision-Making from Biological Levels of Organization.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2022Review
- Neurobiology of Infant Fear and Anxiety: Impacts of Delayed Amygdala Development and Attachment Figure Quality.Biological psychiatry · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In biparental species, each parent represents a semi-independent source of variable caregiving. The nature of care may differ between parents, and the type of care offspring seek is likely to change across development. We asked if caregiving differed between prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) mothers and fathers, and which parent pups prefer over development. We categorized parents as high- or low-contact based on daily recordings of grooming and brooding behavior. Pups were tested for their preferences between parents on postnatal days 10, 14, 18, 22, and 26. We expected individual parents would vary in the amount of care they gave, with pups preferring the parent that gives the most care and/or that most meets their needs at each developmental timepoint. Mothers spent more time in contact with pups than fathers. Mothers were consistent in the amount of care they gave, whereas fathers were variable caregivers. Pups never preferred fathers over mothers, but only demonstrated a preference for mothers before weaning. Lastly, the amount of contact did not influence pup preferences. Our data indicate that mothers are consistent sources of caregiving relative to fathers, and pups show little evidence of attachment to a specific parent beyond meeting its own immediate needs.
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