Effects of Early Experience on Cue Preferences of Peromyscus leucopus

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Abstract
Wild-reared and 1st-generation laboratory-reared white-footed mice (P. l. noveboracensis) were studied to assess the effects of early experience on cue preferences. Mice were given a choice of 2 opposing test chambers differing by a single cue, or by degree of a single cue, for a variety of test situations. For the majority of tests, responses of laboratory-reared and wild-reared mice did not differ significantly. Wild-reared mice preferred a high nocturnal illuminance of 0.020 ft-c to illuminance 0.1 of that: laboratory-reared mice showed no preference. Wild-reared mice preferred a visual cue oriented horizontally to an otherwise identical vertical one at high nocturnal illuminance; laboratory-reared mice showed no preference. Laboratory-reared mice chose the odor of grass to that of leaf litter and wild-reared mice showed no preference. Presuming similar gene pools for these 2 closely related groups of mice, a role for early experience in certain sensory cue preferences of P. leucopus is suggested.

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