A comparison between house mouse lines selected for attack latency or nest-building: evidence for a genetic basis of alternative behavioral strategies.

House mouse lines bidirectionally selected for either nest-building behavior or attack latency were tested for both attack latency and nest-building behavior under identical conditions. Male mice selected for high nest-building behavior had shorter attack latencies, i.e., were more aggressive, than those selected for low nest-building behavior and their randomly bred control lines. Conversely, male wild house mice selected for short attack latency showed more nest-building behavior than those selected for long attack latency when tested at 110 days of age. These findings imply a common genetic basis for control of aggression and nesting and support earlier proposals as to how animals may exhibit fundamentally different responses to environmental challenges, either reacting actively to aversive situations (aggressive and high-nesting animals: active copers) or adopting a passive strategy (nonaggressive and low-nesting animals: passive copers).