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<p>Many nocturnal mammals spend the day in nests or other shelters, but this aspect of their social organization remains obscure, despite interesting variation among species, seasons and individuals in whether they also sleep alone or in association with conspecifics. To contribute new comparative data on this neglected aspect of sociality, we monitored the occurrence, structure and stability of sleeping associations of 329 wild nocturnal gray mouse lemurs (<i>Microcebus murinus</i>) in artificial nests across four years. We found that most of these small primates slept in association with 1–8 other individuals, but virtually never with members of the opposite sex. A third of the individuals always exhibited the same sleeping tactic (20% always solitary, 13% always in association). Among the more flexible individuals, males, but not females, were more often found in sleeping associations during the birth season than during the annual mating season. Sleeping associations of both sexes were stable, with the same two individuals often being found together on subsequent days. Females, in particular regularly formed stable sleeping associations within seasons. In line with our predictions, the observed variation in sleeping patterns revealed a significant interaction between sex and season, highlighting a need for additional study of the drivers of individual and sex-specific tactics, such as kinship. More generally, our study exemplified implications for the classification of the social organization of species that are solitary during their period of activity and gregarious during their period of inactivity.</p>

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Who to sleep with? Daytime sleeping associations in nocturnal gray mouse lemurs

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月10日

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  • Sacha C. Engelhardt,
  • Lluís Socias-Martínez,
  • Clémence Poirotte,
  • Pauline Bodson,
  • Gregoire Sinaotse,
  • Rémi Ampataka,
  • Louise Peckre,
  • Henning Lahmann,
  • Marta Mosna,
  • Fanomezana Mihaja Ratsoavina,
  • Claudia Fichtel,
  • Peter M. Kappeler

摘要

Many nocturnal mammals spend the day in nests or other shelters, but this aspect of their social organization remains obscure, despite interesting variation among species, seasons and individuals in whether they also sleep alone or in association with conspecifics. To contribute new comparative data on this neglected aspect of sociality, we monitored the occurrence, structure and stability of sleeping associations of 329 wild nocturnal gray mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) in artificial nests across four years. We found that most of these small primates slept in association with 1–8 other individuals, but virtually never with members of the opposite sex. A third of the individuals always exhibited the same sleeping tactic (20% always solitary, 13% always in association). Among the more flexible individuals, males, but not females, were more often found in sleeping associations during the birth season than during the annual mating season. Sleeping associations of both sexes were stable, with the same two individuals often being found together on subsequent days. Females, in particular regularly formed stable sleeping associations within seasons. In line with our predictions, the observed variation in sleeping patterns revealed a significant interaction between sex and season, highlighting a need for additional study of the drivers of individual and sex-specific tactics, such as kinship. More generally, our study exemplified implications for the classification of the social organization of species that are solitary during their period of activity and gregarious during their period of inactivity.