The goal would be to determine (under lab conditions) differences in the reproductive success after 5-6 months of winter hibernation, of female yearlings born either early or late during the previous year.
Hi Sylvain!
The most straight forward measurement is the number of offspring these females can produce when mating, but to standardize, amount of sperm and preferrably the same male should ideally be used.
What organism are you planning to breed?
Best Regards,
Leon
Hi Leon,
Thanks for your answer!
Those experiments are actually ongoing right now. We bred them by randomizing at most, and we got plently of pups. It seems so far that there are no differences in the number of pups between early and late-born females. We have to look more precisely at the pup quality and so on.
I am using the garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus), because it reproduces quite good, have early and late reproductive events and hibernate very well in winter (including under lab conditions too!).
Regards,
Sylvain
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