Deer Mouse Research Program Grows

Matt MacManes, UCB graduate student with Eileen Lacey, arrived over the last two weeks to begin field work to examine the relationship between MHC and social behavior. MHC means "Major Histocompatibility Loci". In the vertebrate lineage of animals, the MHC genes provide the information for making antibodies to foreign organisms that may attempt to invade the animal. MHC is also responsible for labelling the cells of an animal for self-recognition, so an animal won't be attacked by its own immune system. Hastings is home to populations of several species of deer mice (Peromyscus sp.). Some are monogamous , some are polygynous and other promiscuous . The social behavior (mating systems) of these deer mice has been worked out previously by other researchers here at Hastings and elsewhere. Based on this work, Matt is building a collection of tissues from mice to compare the MHC genes in each species. Matina Kalcounis is making some of her tissue samples available to Mat, and Mat is trapping mice elsewhere in CA and in a variety of Hastings habitats. For more on this, here is Matt's blog. From left to right, Rada Petric, Matt, Jessica Briggs.