Parental prey selection affects risk-taking behaviour and spatial learning in avian offspring
Parental prey selection affects risk-taking behaviour and spatial learning in avian offspring
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2007.0687
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发表时间：
2007-10-22
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Adam, Aileen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Arnold, Kathryn E.;Ramsay, Scot L.;Adam, Aileen
早期营养塑造生命史。因此，父母应该提供一种饮食，以优化其后代的营养摄入。在一些雀形目，有一个经常观察到的，但无法解释的，峰值蜘蛛供应在小鸡的发展。我们发现，在雏鸟蓝山雀，Cyanistes caeruleus的饮食中的蜘蛛的比例，随着雏鸡的年龄显着变化，但不相关的时间繁殖或蜘蛛的可用性。此外，这种父母的猎物选择提供雏鸟高水平的牛磺酸，特别是在年轻的年龄。已知这种氨基酸对哺乳动物的发育至关重要且具有限制作用，因此在胎盘和乳汁中的浓度很高。基于牛磺酸在哺乳动物大脑发育和功能中的已知作用，我们随后询问鸟类父母是否通过提供富含牛磺酸的蜘蛛来影响其后代的应激反应和认知功能。为了测试这一点，我们提供了野生蓝山雀雏鸟牛磺酸补充剂或对照治疗，每天一次，从2-14天的年龄。然后，成对的大小和性别匹配的兄弟姐妹被关进笼子里进行行为测试。我们发现，青少年已收到额外的牛磺酸作为新生儿采取显着更大的风险时，调查新的对象比对照组。牛磺酸鸟类在空间学习任务中也比对照组更成功。此外，那些成功完成空间学习任务的人表现出中等程度的冒险精神。非学习者通常是非常厌恶风险的对照组。因此，早期饮食对行为特征具有下游影响，这些行为特征可能通过觅食和竞争表现影响健身。精细尺度的猎物选择是一种机制，父母可以操纵后代的行为表型。
Early nutrition shapes life history. Parents should, therefore, provide a diet that will optimize the nutrient intake of their offspring. In a number of passerines, there is an often observed, but unexplained, peak in spider provisioning during chick development. We show that the proportion of spiders in the diet of nestling blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, varies significantly with the age of chicks but is unrelated to the timing of breeding or spider availability. Moreover, this parental prey selection supplies nestlings with high levels of taurine particularly at younger ages. This amino acid is known to be both vital and limiting for mammalian development and consequently found in high concentrations in placenta and milk. Based on the known roles of taurine in mammalian brain development and function, we then asked whether by supplying taurine-rich spiders, avian parents influence the stress responsiveness and cognitive function of their offspring. To test this, we provided wild blue tit nestlings with either a taurine supplement or control treatment once daily from the ages of 2-14 days. Then pairs of size- and sex-matched siblings were brought into captivity for behavioural testing. We found that juveniles that had received additional taurine as neonates took significantly greater risks when investigating novel objects than controls. Taurine birds were also more successful at a spatial learning task than controls. Additionally, those individuals that succeeded at a spatial learning task had shown intermediate levels of risk taking. Non-learners were generally very risk-averse controls. Early diet therefore has downstream impacts on behavioural characteristics that could affect fitness via foraging and competitive performance. Fine-scale prey selection is a mechanism by which parents can manipulate the behavioural phenotype of offspring.