-Two experiments studied the relative effects on body mass and testicular growth of stimulatory photoperiods applied simultaneously to two photosensitive species, the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and brahminy myna (Sturnus pagodarum).
Two experiments were performed to study of the effects of social interaction on photoperiodic induction in house sparrows. In the first experiment, short-day pretreated birds were exposed to stimulatory long day lengths (16L: 8D) for 4 weeks. The first set had a group of male and female birds kept individually in cages so that they could not see to each other. The second was similar to the first but the cages were separated by a transparent partition so that birds could see each other. In third four male and four female were kept together in the same cage. The second experiment differed from the experiment 1 in the sense that it housed individual birds and also included another variable, the noise. Birds were disturbed by the sound of a ringing bell for 15 minutes at three times of the day, ZT4, ZT8 and ZT12. Observations on body mass and gonad size were made at the beginning and end of the experiment. The pairing in the environment appears to affect the gonadal growth in females but not in males.
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