Female aggression

Female aggression, maternal rodents Lactating female with litter present confronts intruding male Defense of young, competition for resources Attack and/or threaten intruder... 

Fig. 13.7 Artist impressions of the social interactions between crayfish in a population of high density. Aggressive interactions between males (on the right) involve physical contact of the claws (claw lock) and urine release. Reproductive interaction (bottom) involve male mating attempt (starting with the male seizing female antennae with left claw) and female aggressive behavior (female claw lock) with urine release. Drawing courtesy of Jorge Andres Varela Ramos...

Floody, O. R., and Pf, D. W., 1977, Aggressive behavior in female hamsters the hormonal basis for fluctuations in female aggressiveness correlated with estrous state, J. Comp. Physiol. Psych. 91 443-464. 

The majority of vomerolfactory effects discussed relate to intra-specific patterns, most concerned with social discriminations. Individual and or group membership, hierarchical status —often aggression-related, are among many non-sexual but socially indispensable elements. Social systems with evident female dominance are not infrequent among... 

Bean N.J. and Wysocki C.J. (1989). Vomeronasal organ removal and female mouse aggression the role of experience. Physiol Behav 45, 875-882. 

Females Mating behavior response lacking under influence of estradiol. Greater aggressiveness and infanticide. 

Vom Saal, F.S., Franks, P., Boechler, M., Palanza, P and Parmigiani, S. (1995) Nest defence and survival of offspring in highly aggressive wild Canadian female house mice. Physiol. Behav. 58, 669-678. 

Thiessen, D. D. andHarriman, A. E. (1986) Harderian gland exudates in the male Meriones unguic-ulatus regulate female proceptive behavior, aggression, and investigation. J. Comp. Psychol. 100, 85-87. 

Grammer, K. Kruck, K. 1996. Female control and female choice. In When women want sex perspectives on female sexual initiation and aggression. (Ed. by B. Anderson C. Struckmann-Johnson) New York Guilford Press. 

A variety of kinds of evidence have linked emotional behavior to hormones. Two conditions, the menstrual cycle and menopause, have been the focus of a great deal of research on human behavior. In addition, gender differences in the prevalence of mental illnesses have been used as indirect evidence for possible hormonal effects on emotional disorders. For example, depression is more common in women than in men. In contrast, a pubertal onset of schizophrenia is more common in males than females (Hafner, et al., 1993), although the lifetime occurrence of schizophrenia is approximately equal in men and women (Seeman, 1996). Effects of hormones on emotional lability in men are described above in the context of aggression. 

The female produced sex pheromone of Aleochara curtula has been described to consist of a mixture of (Z)-7-henicosene and (Z)-7-tricosene [114]. The same compounds are reported to be used by young males as a kind of camouflage to avoid aggression from older males. Similarly, chemical camouflage by using hydrocarbons plays a role in the relations between the myrme-cophilous staphylinid beetle Zyras cones and the ant Lasius fuliginosus. The host worker ants never attack these beetles which show the same profiles of cuticular hydrocarbons as the ants [115]. 

An investigation of the stereochemistry of the urinary substances eliciting intermale aggression in the house mouse established that (l ,7.R)-3,4-dehydro-exo-brevicomin is present in the urine. Due to extremely facile racemization under very mild conditions, it was concluded that 2-sec-butyl-4,5-dihydrothi-azole 2 it is present in the urine as the racemate. It was suggested that the acidity of mouse urine probably promotes racemization of the optically active compound derived biosynthetically from an amino acid [36]. The observation that female house mice prefer the urinary odors of males uninfected by the intestinal nematode Heligmosomoidespolygyrus suggests that urine may also be important in conveying information on the infection status of males [37]. 

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