Maternal styles in a precocial bird

Pittet, Florent; Houdelier, Cécilia; Margerie, Emmanuel de; Bot, Océane Le; Richard‐Yris, Marie‐Annick; Lumineau, Sophie

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.10.025

Cited by 19 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The significant differences we found here concerning LTIs’ and STIs’ reactions after their brood had been freed in the cage suggest that chicks constitute a different kind of novel stimulus, able to reveal important differences in female’s reactions in a familiar environment. A previous study suggested that maternal fearfulness could predict maternal care as far as aggressiveness (one of the two dimensions of quail’s maternal styles) is concerned [27]. Using a similar method to calculate maternal care behaviour averaged over the 5 days post-hatch, our results confirmed this link.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Fearfulness Affects Quail Maternal Care and Subsequent Offspring Development

et al. 2014

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Our study investigated relationships between a precocial bird’s fearfulness and maternal care, and the implication of maternal care as a vector for non-genomic transmission of fearfulness to chicks. We compared care given to chicks between two sets of female Japanese quail selected to present either high (LTI) or low fearfulness (STI). Chicks, from a broiler line, were adopted by these females following a sensitization procedure. Chicks’ fearfulness after separation from their mother was assessed by well-established procedures. LTIs took longer to present maternal responses, pecked chicks more during the first days post-hatch, presented impaired maternal vocal behaviour and were globally less active than STI females. Chicks mothered by LTIs presented more fearful reactions than did chicks mothered by STIs, supporting the hypothesis of a non-genetic maternal transmission of fearfulness. We suggest that the longer latencies required by LTIs to become maternal are a consequence of their greater fear of chicks, and that their lower general and vocal activity could be components of a heightened antipredatory strategy. We discuss the transmission of maternal fearfulness to fostered chicks, taking into account the possible implication of several well-known mechanisms underlying maternal effects.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Fearfulness Affects Quail Maternal Care and Subsequent Offspring Development

et al. 2014

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“…These individual differences in maternal care, termed maternal styles, are consistent across generations of offspring and influence their behavioural phenotype (Fairbanks & McGuire, 1988). Recently, maternal styles have been identified for the first time in another precocial bird, the Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica (Pittet et al, 2014). In a cross-fostering experiment, naturally occurring individual differences in the characteristics of maternal care by mother quails were split into two principal independent dimensions: mothers' aggressiveness and their propensity to warm or reject their chicks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social buffering in a bird

et al. 2015

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“…This suggests that males were less emancipated at the end of the breeding period (a hypothesis consistent with the above‐mentioned potential differences in their developmental calendar) and thus they may have kept closer to their mother during the last days of the brooding period. This strategy is energetically costly as maternal rejection increases during this period (Pittet et al, , ). Simultaneously the more emancipated females probably spent more time foraging and this could explain why weight differences appear so early.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precocial bird mothers shape sex differences in the behavior of their chicks

2014

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Compared to mammals and altricial birds, evaluations of differences related to precocial birds' sex have often been limited to sexual behavior. Nevertheless, the extensive use of precocial bird models for investigating behavioral development issues requires in depth knowledge concerning the emergence of sex differences. Here, we evaluated behavioral differences between Japanese quail chicks in relation to their sex. We know that maternal influences are strong and early social environment shapes behavioral development in this species. Therefore, we investigated the emergence of sex differences in two very different early social situations to evaluate the impact of precocial bird mothers on sex differences. We assessed behavioral differences related to sex of (1) non-brooded chicks and of (2) brooded chicks, using various ethological tests to evaluate emotional reactivity and social motivation differences related to sex. Our results show that both non-brooded and brooded chicks present behavioral differences related to sex. They differed greatly according to chicks' early experience. Sex-related differences between maternally deprived (non-brooded) chicks concerned mainly fearfulness, whereas differences between male and female brooded chicks concerned mainly their reactions to social isolation. We hypothesize that mothers attenuate sex differences related to fearfulness by being a model for responses to fear-eliciting situations and by providing a similar secure basis to both males and females. We finally propose that mothers induce differences in chicks' sociality by providing asymmetrical care toward males and females.

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Maternal styles in a precocial bird

Cited by 19 publications

References 42 publications

Fearfulness Affects Quail Maternal Care and Subsequent Offspring Development

Fearfulness Affects Quail Maternal Care and Subsequent Offspring Development

Social buffering in a bird

Precocial bird mothers shape sex differences in the behavior of their chicks

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