Scent Marking, Sexual Behavior and Aggression in Male Gerbils: Comparative Analysis of Endocrine Control

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Abstract
SYNOPSIS. The aggressive, sexual, and scent marking behaviors of male gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) are sensitive to gonadal androgens, but androgens are not equally important in the control of each behavior. In this species, territorial residency, prior aggressive experience, and unidentified factors that contribute to large individual differences in aggressiveness, influence the aggressive behavior of males at least as much as androgens do. To the extent that androgens affect aggression between male gerbils, they act partially by altering aggressiveness and partially by altering production of aggression-eliciting cues. The nature of these cues is unknown. Understanding the role of androgens in aggression in this species is further complicated by the observation that castration can either increase or decrease aggression depending on the age at which the surgery is performed. In contrast, androgens play aprimary role in the control of sexual behavior and scent marking. Both behaviors consistently decline following castration despite prior experience of the males. Both behaviors are also controlled by the medial preoptic area-anterior hypothalamus, an area of the brain often implicated in the control of male sociosexual behaviors. It appears, though, that the sites, and possibly the mechanisms, of hormone action underlying scent marking and sexual behavior differ. Studying both behaviors in the same species, and whenever possible in the same individuals, is proving to be a useful technique for identifying such differences between behaviors as their sensitivity to steroids and to brain lesions.

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