By Stephen Beech via SWNS
Male mice use females as “decoys” to distract aggressive rivals and avoid conflict, suggests new research.
The males will run over to female mice when threatened – using a “bait-and-switch” tactic to distract aggressors, say scientists.
American researchers tracked the behavior of mice using artificial intelligence to understand how they handle aggressive behavior from other mice.
Their findings, published in the journal PLOS Biology, show that male mice de-escalate potentially violent encounters by running over to a female mouse to distract the aggressive male.
The team recorded groups of two male and two female mice interacting over five hours.
Study leader Professor Joshua Neunuebel said that, like many other animals, mice have “social hierarchies” – and in almost every group recorded, one male was always “significantly” more aggressive towards the other.
He explained that social interactions can be “challenging” to study objectively, so the team used a machine learning approach to analyze aggressive interactions and how the mice respond.
Neunuebel, of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware, said: “Using artificial intelligence, we found that male mice turn to nearby females to distract aggressors and de-escalate conflicts.
“After an aggressive encounter, the aggressed male briefly engages with a female before quickly escaping, as the aggressor’s focus shifts to her.”
The team observed more than 3,000 altercations between the male mice, and the machine learning algorithm helped them to determine the most likely responses to aggression and whether the actions resolved or furthered the conflict.
They found that the male mouse who was aggressively encountered often ran over to one of the female mice and that tactic de-escalated the aggression.
Neunuebel said: “This may be a ‘bait-and-switch’ tactic, as the aggressive male mouse typically followed the other male but then interacted with the female mouse instead of continuing the aggressive encounter.
“Some other tactics, even if they avoided aggression for a moment, would then escalate to full fights.”
But the researchers found that was not the case after the “bait-and-switch”.
Neunuebel said: “After this tactic was used, fights rarely occurred, the male mice often remaining farther apart from each other with the aggressive mouse continuing to interact with the female mouse.
“While the bait-and-switch may be an effective way to deescalate conflicts, there may be costs to the victim, such as sacrificing time with the female mice, and further research may look into whether these tactics are effective in larger groups of mice.”
He added: “This study also demonstrates how machine learning tools can useful for understanding animal behavior, and similar tools could be used to study how the many other species with social hierarchies handle aggression.”
