Social dominance and food sharing in vulturine guineafowl Acryllium vulturinum

秃鹫珍珠鸡 Acryllium v​​ulturinum 的社会支配地位和食物共享

• 批准号: 2238551
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2238551
• 关键词: Social; dominance; food; sharing; vulturine

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.

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，它们可能会在以后遭受健康状况不佳并过早死亡。然而，由于实验通常在社会隔离中测试动物，因此对早期生活压力对后期社会行为的影响知之甚少。我们最近对斑胸草雀（一种高度社会化的物种）的研究表明，早期生活的压力可能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，暴露于应激激素升高的小鸡形成了更多但更弱的社会联系，因此它们占据了更多的核心社会网络位置。此外，虽然对照鸟类倾向于复制父母的觅食决定，但压力鸟类只复制不相关的成年人（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将早年生活的压力作为一种暗示，认为应该避开他们的父母，还是因为父母优先投资于他们没有压力的、质量更高的后代？早年的压力和由此产生的社会行为变化如何影响个人的健康、寿命和生殖成功？这个项目将确定：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他们的父母，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分布、衰老速度、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采尔的马克斯·普朗克鸟类学研究所进行。在这里，一流的鸟舍包含繁荣的斑马雀殖民地。学生将一半的斑胸草雀幼雏暴露于鸟类应激激素皮质酮，而对照组的兄弟姐妹接受对照物质（花生油）。雏鸟和它们的家人在雏鸟羽翼丰满后，将被安装上新开发的“条形码背包”，所有的互动都将被微型计算机记录下来。学生将接受最新的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。还将对经处理的鸟类及其后代进行血液采样和终生测量，以量化其应激生理学、生长、身体状况和衰老率（通过端粒缩短）。这种尖端生理，行为和统计工具的独特组合将扩大学生的科学工具包，并增加我们对社会行为发展驱动因素的理解。

项目成果

Costs dictate strategic investment in dominance interactions.

• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0447
• 发表时间: 2022-02-28
• 期刊: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
• 作者: Dehnen T;Papageorgiou D;Nyaguthii B;Cherono W;Penndorf J;Boogert NJ;Farine DR
• 通讯作者: Farine DR