9317874 Meikle In this study of wild house mice, the offspring of mothers that always have food available will be compared to the offspring of mothers that are fed on an intermittent basis. In addition to data on the rate of growth of offspring, the project will yield information on offspring dominance ranks, territorial behavior and choice of mates by daughters. Finally, the reproduction of sons and daughters in small outdoor enclosures will be measured using a new DNA fingerprinting technique. These results will provide the first detailed information on how maternal nutritional state during pregnancy influences the development, behavior and reproduction of offspring.%%% The study will help resolve the controversy about whether maternal nutritional state has different effects on the reproduction of sons and daughters in a mammalian species such as house mice. The results also will yield information about the physiological impact of maternal nutritional state that may be useful to animal breeders. In addition, if these results are generalizable to other mammal species, they may offer some insights into human development and behavior.***
