NEW YORK, June 10 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say information about DNA in prairie voles explains why some are faithful partners and good fathers while others are less reliable.
The range of behavior is influenced by a genetic mechanism that helps the rodents make quick evolutionary adaptations, the researchers from Emory University report in the new issue of Science. Reporting on the findings, The New York Times said the mechanism is regulated by a highly variable section of DNA involved in controlling a gene.
Emory researchers Elizabeth Hammock and Larry Young said they have observed the same mechanism in the sequence of human DNA, but they do not know how it may influence human behavior.
Hammock and Young said voles' DNA has a control section that expands and contracts in the course of evolution, resulting in a wide range of control section lengths within a wild population of the rodents.
The researchers said males with long versions of the control section are monogamous and devoted to their pups, while those with shorter versions are less so.
Humans also have variable DNA control sections, but Young told the paper it would be hard to predict how those differences would affect behavior, since any such genetic effects in men would also be influenced by culture.
