Formation, maintenance, and dissolution of winter nesting groups of Siberian flying squirrels
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Hayato Kikuchi
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Hisashi Yanagawa
Abstract
Pteromys volans is asocial; however, individuals temporarily form communal nesting groups in tree cavities during winter. It was anticipated that behavioural keys could be identified to facilitate the transition between living a solitary and gregarious lifestyle. Understanding the processes of formation, maintenance, and dissolution of a nesting group of P. volans may help to resolve the dynamics of communal nesting in rodents. We tracked the nesting behaviour of P. volans in two cavity nests from September to April in 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 using passive integrated transponder tags and infrared video cameras. Twelve males and nine females used these nests, and the nesting group originated from the presence of at least one male and one female. The nesting group was maintained from autumn to early spring. Although the group members changed frequently, causing fluctuations in group composition, stable principal individuals were retained. The nesting group dissolved during March–April, suggesting that this may be related to mating behaviour. These findings provide valuable insight into the sociality of P. volans.
Acknowledgments
We thank Y. Takahata, S. Kikuchi, S. Ando, A. Teruuchi, and S. Murakami for their assistance with field surveys. We thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their useful and constructive comments on the draft manuscript.
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Research ethics: We secured permission to capture Pteromys volans from the Hokkaido Government, Japan (nos. 626 and 627 in 2019–2020 and nos. 607 and 608 in 2020–2021) and obtained ethical clearance from the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (no. 19-171 in 2019–2020 and no. 20-15 in 2020–2021).
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Author contributions: HK and TO conducted the research project. HK performed the field survey. HK and TO wrote the draft manuscript. TO, YA, TA and HY revised the draft manuscript. All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.
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Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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Research funding: Not applicable. There was no specific funding.
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Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.
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