Multi-Level Effects Driving Cognitive and Behavioral Variability among Prairie Voles: Insights into Reproductive Decision-Making from Biological Levels of Organization

Abstract

Behavioral phenotypes play an active role in maximizing fitness and shaping the evolutionary trajectory of species by offsetting the ecological and social environmental factors individuals experience. How these phenotypes evolve and how they are expressed is still a major question in ethology today. In recent years, an increased focus on the mechanisms that regulate the interactions between an individual and its environment has offered novel insights into the expression of alternative phenotypes. In this review, we explore the proximate mechanisms driving the expression of alternative reproductive phenotypes in the male prairie vole (<i>Microtus ochrogaster</i>) as one example of how the interaction of an individual’s social context and internal milieu has the potential to alter behavior, cognition, and reproductive decision-making. Ultimately, integrating the physiological and psychological mechanisms of behavior advances understanding into how variation in behavior arises. We take a “levels of biological organization” approach, with prime focus placed on the level of the organism to discuss how cognitive processes emerge as traits, and how they can be studied as important mechanisms driving the expression of behavior.