Mice Mothers Devote Energies To Offspring When Life Is Threatened

An Iowa State University researcher has found that sick female deer mice devote their energy to producing healthier offspring.

Lisa Schwanz, a researcher in the department of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, studied the size of offspring for both infected and healthy mice and found that females that had been infected with a parasite produced larger offspring than healthy females.

This finding was unexpected because most mammals tend to focus on their own survival when they are threatened with sickness or infection.

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Tagged as: Animals, Biology, Deer Mice, Ecology, Iowa, Iowa State University, Mammals, Mice