Abstract
Laboratory rodents have been the animals of choice for biomedical, behavioral, and pharmaceutical research because of their availability as well-defined strains. The need to look beyond laboratory studies of house mice and to determine their relevance to the real world also has attracted much interest in the behavioral ecology literature. The generality of laboratory studies of rodents for biomedical research also needs to be carefully scrutinized. This chapter reviews the aspects of the natural history, physiology, behavior, reproduction, and population dynamics, and diseases of wild mice. The focus is on the western European house mouse, Mus domesticus, a sibling species of its eastern European form Mus musculus. The chapter also cautions on extrapolating studies on motor behavior, spatial behavior, and social behavior from the Norway rat to the house mouse and provides compelling evidence that mouse behavior is simpler than that of the rat and is more dependent upon elementary actions. It is clear that a strong knowledge of the behavior, ecology, and relatedness of wild species of rodents provides an appropriate framework to interpret the generality of findings of biomedical studies in laboratory animals.
Published Version
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