Norway rats

Project leader:
Michael Taborsky

Post-Docs:
Sacha Engelhardt

PhD-Students:
Niklas Paulsson

Master students:
Nina Kaya Kettler

Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) are social animals that live in large colonies of both related and unrelated individuals. Especially females show complex social behaviour, including allogrooming, communal nursing, as well as food hoarding and sharing. Using a manual food-exchange task, we previously showed that female rats differ in their propensity to cooperate according to previous social experiences. Particularly, they provide help to a partner from which they have received help before (direct reciprocity) and are in general more cooperative to any individual after experiencing help by a conspecific (generalised reciprocity).

Currently, we investigate different modalities of reciprocal cooperation, as well as their connectivity with behavioural syndromes ("personality"), hormon levels (oxytocin, dopamin) and genetic background. For our projects, we house 160 male and female wild-type Norway rats in groups of same-sex sibling with which we test different forms of reciprocity and investigating their potental proximate and ultimate mechanisms.

Publications

Schweinfurth MK, Taborsky M. (2018) Norway rats ( Rattus norvegicus ) communicate need elicits donation of food J. Comp. Psychol. [ Pdf ] [ Featured article of the month ]

Schweinfurth MK & Taborsky M. (2018) Relatedness decreases and reciprocity increases cooperation in Norway councils. Proc. R. Soc. B 285: 20180035 [ pdf ]

Schweinfurth, MK & Taborsky, M., (2018) Reciprocal trading of different commodities in Norway. Current Biology [ pdf ]

Schweinfurth, MK, Taborsky, M. (2017): The transfer of alternative tasks in reciprocal cooperation. Anim. Behav. 131: 35-41 [ pdf ]

Schweinfurth, MK, Stieger, B. Taborsky, M. (2017): Experimental evidence for reciprocity in allogrooming among wild-type Norway rats. Scientific Reports 7: 4010 [ pdf ]

Schweinfurth, MK, Neuenschwander, J., Engqvist, L., Schneeberger, K., Rentsch, AK, Gygax, M., Taborsky, M. (2017): Do female Norway rats form social bonds? , Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 71:98 [ pdf ]

Dolivo, V., Taborsky, M. (2017): Environmental enrichment of young adult rats ( Rattus norvegicus ) in different sensory modalities has long-lasting effects on their ability to learn via specific sensory channels . J. Comp. Psychol DOI: 10.1037 / com0000063 [ pdf ]

Schweinfurth, M. and Taborsky, M. (2016): No evidence for audience effects in reciprocal cooperation of Norway rats Ethology 122: 513–521 [pdf]

Dolivo, V., Rutte, C., Taborsky, M. (2016): Ultimate and proximate mechanisms of reciprocal altruism in rats. Learn. Behav. [pdf]

Dolivo, V. & Taborsky, M. (2015): Cooperation among Norway rats: The importance of visual cues for reciprocal cooperation, and the role of coercion. Ethology121: 1-20. [pdf]  

Dolivo, V. & Taborsky, M. (2015): Norway rats reciprocate help according to the quality of help they received. Biol. Lett. 11:20140959 [pdf]  

Schneeberger K., Dietz M. & Taborsky M. (2012): Reciprocal cooperation between unrelated rats depends on cost to donor and benefit to recipient. BMC Evol. Biol. 12:41 [pdf]

Lehner S.R., Rutte C. & Taborsky M. (2011): Rats benefit from winner and loser effects. Ethology 117: 1-12. [pdf, 205 KB] 

Rutte C. & Taborsky M. (2008): The influence of social experience on cooperative behaviour of rats (Rattus norvegicus): direct vs generalised reciprocity. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 62:499–505 [pdf] 

Rutte C. & Taborsky M. (2007): Generalized reciprocity in rats. PLoS Biol. 5:1421-1425 [pdf]