Chemical and ethological characterization of volatiles implicated in behavioural responses of songbird hatchlings to their parents’ scent

鸣禽幼鸟对其父母气味的行为反应所隐含的挥发物的化学和行为学特征

• 批准号: 443855554
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Barbara Caspers
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Aroma- und Geruchsforschung
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/443855554?language=en
• 关键词: Chemical; ethological; characterization; volatiles; implicated

There is increasing evidence that olfaction plays a hitherto neglected role in the social behaviour of songbirds, including parent-offspring interaction. In zebra finches, Caspers and colleagues (2017) found out that freshly hatched chicks beg longer when stimulated with their parental odour compared with the odour from an unfamiliar adult, indicating that chicks recognise their parents’ scent from hatching on. Recent pilot studies led to the conclusion that zebra finch chicks do not only evince a begging behaviour to the parental scent, but also to specific compounds of the body odour of any adult breeding zebra finch. It still remains unknown, however, which kind of chemical information elicits the chicks’ stereotypical begging behaviour. In the proposed project, we aim to identify and characterize these behaviourally active compounds.

越来越多的证据表明，嗅觉在鸣禽的社会行为（包括亲子互动）中发挥着迄今为止被忽视的作用。 Caspers 及其同事 (2017) 在斑胸草雀中发现，与不熟悉的成鸟的气味相比，刚孵出的雏鸟在受到父母气味刺激时乞讨的时间更长，这表明雏鸟从孵化之日起就能识别父母的气味。最近的初步研究得出的结论是，斑胸草雀雏鸟不仅会对父母的气味表现出乞讨行为，而且还会对任何成年斑胸草雀体味的特定化合物表现出乞讨行为。然而，目前仍不清楚是哪种化学信息引发了小鸡典型的乞讨行为。在拟议的项目中，我们的目标是识别和表征这些行为活性化合物。