Social dominance and food sharing in vulturine guineafowl Acryllium vulturinum

当动物在生命早期暴露于食物短缺或父母忽视等压力经历时，它们以后可能会健康状况不佳，早死。然而，由于实验通常是在社会隔离的情况下进行的，因此人们对早期生活压力对后来社会行为的影响知之甚少。我们最近对斑马雀（一种高度社会化的物种）的研究表明，早期生活压力会对社会关系的形成和强度产生重大影响：与对照组的兄弟姐妹相比，暴露在高压力激素下的雏鸟形成了更多但更弱的社会关系，因此它们占据了更多的社会网络中心位置。此外，控制组的鸟倾向于模仿父母的觅食决定，而应激组的鸟只会模仿不相关的成年鸟(Boogert, Farine & Spencer (2014) Biology Letters；Farine, Spencer & Boogert (2015) Current Biology)。这些影响的产生是因为青少年把早期生活的压力作为父母应该避免的暗示，还是因为父母优先投资于他们没有压力、质量更高的后代？幼年时期的压力和由此产生的社会行为变化是如何影响个人健康、寿命和繁殖成功率的？这个项目将决定：1)早期生活压力如何塑造父母和后代互动的方式：有压力的小鸡会忽视它们的父母，还是父母会在没有压力的小鸡身上投入更多？2)早期生活压力如何改变个体的压力激素谱、衰老率、寿命和繁殖成功率3)压力的行为和生理后果是否从父母传递给后代（即非遗传的“跨代效应”）。实验将在德国拉多夫泽尔的马克斯普朗克鸟类研究所进行。这里一流的鸟舍里有大量的斑胸草雀。该学生将把一半的斑胸草雀雏鸟暴露在鸟类应激激素皮质酮中，而对照组的兄弟姐妹则接受控制物质（花生油）。羽翼未出的雏鸟和它们的家人将被安装上新开发的“条形码背包”，它们之间的所有互动都将被微型电脑记录下来。该学生将接受最新社会网络分析工具的培训，以量化早期生活压力对鸟类社会表型的影响。接受治疗的鸟类及其后代也将接受血液采样，并在整个生命周期中进行测量，以量化它们的应激生理、生长、身体状况和衰老速度（通过端粒缩短）。这种尖端的生理、行为和统计工具的独特组合将扩展学生的科学工具包，并增加我们对社会行为发展驱动因素的理解。

When animals are exposed to stressful experiences like food shortages or parental neglect early in life, they may later suffer from poor health and die younger. However, as experiments generally test animals in social isolation, the effects of early-life stress on later social behaviour are poorly understood. Our recent research on zebra finches, a highly social species, shows that early-life stress can have major effects on the formation and strength of social relations: chicks exposed to elevated stress hormones formed more but weaker social bonds compared to control siblings, and they occupied more central social network positions as a result. Furthermore, while control birds tended to copy their parents' foraging decisions, stressed birds exclusively copied unrelated adults (Boogert, Farine & Spencer (2014) Biology Letters; Farine, Spencer & Boogert (2015) Current Biology). Do these effects arise because juveniles use early-life stress as a cue that their parents should be avoided, or because parents preferentially invest in their unstressed, higher-quality offspring? And how do early-life stress and resultant changes in social behaviour affect individuals' health, lifespan and reproductive success?This project will determine:1) how early-life stress shapes the ways in which parents and offspring interact: do stressed chicks ignore their parents, or do parents invest more in their non-stressed chicks?2) how early-life stress changes individuals' stress hormone profiles, rates of ageing, lifespan and reproductive success3) whether the behavioural and physiological consequences of stress are passed down from parents to offspring (i.e. non-genetic "transgenerational effects").Experiments will take place at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany. Here top-notch aviaries contain thriving colonies of zebra finches. The student will expose half of the zebra finch chicks to the avian stress hormone corticosterone, while control siblings receive a control substance (peanut oil). After fledging, chicks and their families will be fitted with newly developed "barcodebackpacks" and all their interactions recorded with miniature computers.The student will be trained in the latest social network analytical tools to quantify the effects of early-life stress on the birds' social phenotypes. The treated birds and their offspring will also be blood sampled and measured throughout life to quantify their stress physiology, growth, body condition and ageing rate (through telomere shortening). This unique combination of cutting edge physiological, behavioural and statistical tools will expand the student's scientific toolkit and increase our understanding of the developmental drivers of social behaviour.