Brood size can influence maternal behaviour and chick’s development in precocial birds

Aigueperse, Nadège; Pittet, Florent; Margerie, Emmanuel de; Nicolle, Céline; Houdelier, Cécilia; Lumineau, Sophie

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2017.02.018

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Our results on maternal behavior were consistent with previous studies (Aigueperse et al, ; Pittet, et al, ). It was, therefore, relevant to correlate this behavior with chick development.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…In altricial birds, parents have been found to provide for their chicks more or less according to their sex (Stamps, Clark, Kus, & Arrowood, ; Weimerskirch, Barbraud, & Lys, ). Recently, we have demonstrated that maternal foster quails interact differently according to chicks’ sex, and are closer to their male chicks than to their female ones (Aigueperse et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maternal care affects chicks’ development differently according to sex in quail

Aigueperse

Pittet

Nicolle

et al. 2018

Developmental Psychobiology

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Maternal behavior is known to influence the behavioral development of young. Recently, it was demonstrated that maternal behavior also differed according to sex chicks and brood sex composition. So, here, we explored if these factors influenced behavioral development of chicks quail when they were brooded, and what characteristics of chicks and foster females could best explain this development. We studied three sets of chick pairs brooded by foster females: unisex male, unisex female, and mixed broods. We found that both emotivity profile and sociality depended on the sex: females were more reactive and less social than males. Females' emotivity profile was correlated with brood composition and foster female activity during maternal care. In males, only sociality was correlated with foster females' scores of aggressive rejection. Our results evidence that male and female chicks respond differentially to maternal behavior. This is discussed in terms of ecological and physiological constraints on development according to sex.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal care affects chicks’ development differently according to sex in quail

Aigueperse

Pittet

Nicolle

et al. 2018

Developmental Psychobiology

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“…We also showed that adoptive mothers rejected less chicks from stressed females. Previous studies demonstrated that quail mothers present, between PHD5 and PHD7, an "emancipatory rejection" behaviour, which stimulates chicks' independence (Aigueperse et al, 2017): mothers reject their chicks and become more aggressive when their chicks insistent on remaining close A u t h o r ' s p r e -p r i n t to their mother. Here, we found a similar pattern for NPS-m mothers but not for PS-m mothers that never expressed this "emancipation rejection" during the 11 days of the mothering period and appeared to stimulate their chicks' independency only later.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chicks from stressed females elicit overprotective behaviour in adoptive mother quail

Aigueperse

Houdelier

Bot

et al. 2020

Behavioural Processes

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Beyond the genetic links between mother and young, prenatal effects experienced by offspring can modulate their mother's behaviour and stress. Here we investigated the consequences of stress-induced prenatal maternal effects on quail chicks' behaviour and maternal behaviour. We evaluated how adoptive quail mothers (unstressed) raised chicks of females that had either been stressed (PS) or were non-stressed (NPS) during laying. We demonstrated previously that our social stress procedure during laying increases levels of egg yolk steroid and chicks' emotional reactivity during the postnatal period. We found that, compared to NPS mothers, PS mothers remained closer to their chicks, were aggressed and neglected them less, emitted more maternal vocalisations and called their chicks more when they were separated. Moreover, PS chicks made more requests on their mother. Our results show that mothers responded to chicks' behavioural changes caused by prenatal stress by adapting their maternal behaviour. As exemplified here, for the first time in birds, prenatal environment can affect postnatal maternal behaviour by changing their offspring's behaviour.

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“…For example, in Japanese quail ( C. japonica ), mothers of large broods emitted more maternal vocalisations at the start of mothering but covered the young less towards the end. Chicks in turn huddled more and had higher social motivation than chicks in small broods (Aigueperse et al 2017 ). Impaired maternal care (Champagne et al 2003 ; Lindeyer et al 2013 ), which may in turn be caused by poor habitat conditions (Ivy et al 2008 ), and maternal stress (Rooke et al 2017 ) have also been empirically linked to the development of coping behaviours.…”

Section: What In the Early-life Environment Affects Later-life Copingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why and how the early-life environment affects development of coping behaviours

Langenhof

Komdeur

2018

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Understanding the ways in which individuals cope with threats, respond to challenges, make use of opportunities and mediate the harmful effects of their surroundings is important for predicting their ability to function in a rapidly changing world. Perhaps one of the most essential drivers of coping behaviour of adults is the environment experienced during their early-life development. Although the study of coping, defined as behaviours displayed in response to environmental challenges, has a long and rich research history in biology, recent literature has repeatedly pointed out that the processes through which coping behaviours develop in individuals are still largely unknown. In this review, we make a move towards integrating ultimate and proximate lines of coping behaviour research. After broadly defining coping behaviours (1), we review why, from an evolutionary perspective, the development of coping has become tightly linked to the early-life environment (2), which relevant developmental processes are most important in creating coping behaviours adjusted to the early-life environment (3), which influences have been shown to impact those developmental processes (4) and what the adaptive significance of intergenerational transmission of coping behaviours is, in the context of behavioural adaptations to a fast changing world (5). Important concepts such as effects of parents, habitat, nutrition, social group and stress are discussed using examples from empirical studies on mammals, fish, birds and other animals. In the discussion, we address important problems that arise when studying the development of coping behaviours and suggest solutions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00265-018-2452-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Brood size can influence maternal behaviour and chick’s development in precocial birds

Cited by 8 publications

References 54 publications

Maternal care affects chicks’ development differently according to sex in quail

Maternal care affects chicks’ development differently according to sex in quail

Chicks from stressed females elicit overprotective behaviour in adoptive mother quail

Why and how the early-life environment affects development of coping behaviours

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