Bigger doesn't mean bolder: behavioral variation of four wild rodent species to novelty and predation risk following a fast-slow continuum.
Ian Nicholas BestPei-Jen Lee ShanerHsuan-Yi LoKurtis Jai-Chyi PeiChi-Chien KuoPublished in: Frontiers in zoology (2020)
Our results suggest that these four species do largely follow a behavioral fast-slow continuum with the two smaller mice species demonstrating increased boldness in a novel context compared to the larger rat species. Also, the wild populations of rodents in eastern Taiwan may be naïve to leopard cats. Finally, the rodents in our study demonstrated habituation to the microenvironment, indicating they possess adaptive capacity.