Female nursing partner choice in a population of wild house mice (Mus musculus domesticus)

Table 1 GLMM results analysing the decision to nurse communally and the choice of communal nursing partner

Response variable	Explanatory variables	Estimate	95% CI Lower, Upper	Likelihood ratio test (χ²)	P
Decision to nurse communally	Number of options available	0.14	0.01, 0.26	4.89	0.027
	Number of nest boxes entered	−0.07	−0.24, 0.10	0.66	0.418
	Age of the focal female	0.10	−0.21, 0.41	0.42	0.518
	Experience of focal female	−0.54	−1.20, 0.12	2.59	0.108
	Adult population density	0.28	−0.43, 0.99	0.58	0.447
	Season	−0.26	−0.97, 0.46	0.51	0.477
Choice of partner	Age of option pups	−0.44	−0.66, − 0.22	26.92	< 0.001
	Litter size difference	−0.32	−1.05,0.40	0.75	0.387
	Number of nest boxes shared	−0.19	−0.90, 0.53	0.27	0.606
	Age difference between the females	−0.57	−1.23, 0.09	2.90	0.088
	Age of option female	−0.20	−0.90, 0.49	0.33	0.565
	Pairwise relatedness	0.12	−0.56, 0.80	0.11	0.738
	Association time	0.95	0.01, 1.89	4.39	0.036
	Was option litter solitary?	−0.24	−1.72, 1.23	0.10	0.749

Explanations: Decision to nurse communally = whether the focal female chose to form a communal nest (1) or whether she decided to nurse solitarily (0); Choice of partner = whether the option female was chosen (1) or not (0); Age of the focal female, Age of option female (potential partner) and Age difference (absolute) between the females = calculated as the age the mouse would have been at the time the focal female gave birth to her litter; Experience of focal female = whether a focal female had a litter previously or not (whereby 1 = yes and 0 = no, first litter); Age of option pups = age of the option female’s litter at the time the focal female gave birth. Significant factors (P < 0.05) are highlighted in bold

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