RatsWN

Rats WN
Introducton

• orignated in northern China
• thry traveld to the new world on the human made ships
• live in human cities, suberbs, and agricutral areas

Community

• live in colonies and female rats, usually in groups of 3-6, live in their own system
• female rats may raise young rats together called communal nesting
• when offsprings are weaned, the male rats disperse

Population Density

• organizaton of male rats and rat mating system changes depending on the population density
• during low density, males monoplazies a burrow of females
• at high densities, the social system becomes despotic, with 1 male being dominate and the others being subordinate

Behavior

• female rats usually mate with many male rats
• domestic rats develop aggressive behaviors such as fighting, biting, chasing, and boxing
• they do not live long in the wild, usually less than a year, however they reproduce very quickly

Habitat

• rats eventually moved in with humans living with a human-dependent realtionship called commensalism
• are found almost everywhere with humans and cover the globe in a population explosion that spans the entire earth
• human settlement are now the "ecological niche" of the wild rats
• may develop as independent wild animals when the climate is mild

http://www.ratbehavior.org/WildRats.htm

question: Based on the infomation given, how do male rats live when the population density is high?