Dominance Behavior

Mice are territorial creatures in nature, but they also live in kin groups within a territory called a deme. Within a deme mice show a range of dominance behaviors. In standard laboratory conditions mice tend to display a dominance hierarchy, and associated dominance behavior, rather than territorial behavior. Mice use scent marking from urine to designate established territories. The small cage sizes used to group house laboratory mice may be insufficient to map out territories. As a result, most flight and submissive behaviors, aggressive behaviors, and threat behaviors occur in the context of dominance, rather than territoriality. For example, mounting and submissive behavior are typical dominance behaviors. Mice also communicate through urinary and plantar odor cues, which are very important in maintaining the dominance hierarchy. In particular, dominant mice will leave more urinary cues, and over-mark the urine of subordinates. 

Dominance is a ranking of individuals in a group. An animal's ranking is its place among the total number of individuals, such that the highest ranking dominates all others in the group and the lowest ranking dominates none of the others. Dominance may not be completely linear, and involve complex social relationships, or uncertain rankings, particularly between mid-ranking individuals. See Howerton et al. 2008.

Agonistic Interactions

Territorial behavior and dominance behavior differ in the context that they occur, the resources under competition, and the threat behavior that initiates the interaction.