Your sister is not a coldly logical Experimentor; she is not the stuff of which Nation Builders and rat-torturers are made. She created a unisex utopia, without the mating displays, territoriality, and violence that characterize rat and human societies. If she'd had a mix of males and females, and a fixed living space, the population would have increased, till the males began constantly fighting each other for scarce lebenstraum. The most aggressive behavior is most "fit", in that environment, so the rat Sharons and Pattons and Tamurlanes would have dominated their society.
A classic series of experiments to determine the effects of overpopulation on communities of rats was conducted by a psychologist, John Calhoun. In each experiment, an equal number of male and female adult rats were placed in an enclosure. The rat populations were allowed to increase. Calhoun knew from experience approximately how many rats could live in the enclosures without experiencing stress due to overcrowding. He allowed the population to increase to approximately twice this number. Then he stabilized the population by removing offspring that were not dependent on their mothers. At the end of the experiments, Calhoun was able to conclude that overcrowding causes a breakdown in the normal social relationships among rats, a kind of social disease. The rats in the experiments did not follow the same patterns of behavior as rats would in a community without overcrowding.
The females in the rat population were the most seriously affected by the high population density. For example, mothers sometimes abandoned their pups, and, without their mothers'care, the pups died. The experiments verified that in overpopulated communities, mother rats do not behave normally. Their behavior may be considered diseased, pathological.
The dominant males in the rat population were the least affected by over population. Each of these strong males claimed an area of the enclosure as his own. Therefore, these individuals did not experience the overcrowding in the same way as the other rats did. However, dominant males did behave pathologically at times. Their antisocial behavior consisted of attacks on weaker male, female, and immature rats. This deviant behaviour showed that even though the dominant males had enough living space, they too were affected by the general overcrowding.
Nondominant males in the experimental rat communities also exhibited deviant social behavior. Some withdrew completely, avoiding contact with other rats. Other nondominant males were hyperactive, chasing other rats and fighting each other.
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