White David J
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
ILAR J. 2010;51(4):387-93. doi: 10.1093/ilar.51.4.387.
The interrelationships among individuals in gregarious species can have profound effects on the animals' behavior, physiology, and even health. Captive housing should address the social needs of such species because failure to do so can result in the development and expression of abnormal behavior. But determining what social stimuli to provide for any given species poses many challenges. I review recent work on brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) that was designed to identify the social stimuli critical for effective development and breeding. The work demonstrates the importance of social experiences in organizing reproductive physiology and behavior, so much so that inattention to these experiences can lead to misinterpretation of the function and mechanisms of the birds' behavior. There are no general rules applicable to all social species, however. Determining the social conditions needed for members of any species requires an ethological approach that evaluates the sensory, cognitive, and ecological characteristics of the species and considers those characteristics in the design of captive housing and research.
群居物种中个体之间的相互关系会对动物的行为、生理乃至健康产生深远影响。圈养环境应满足此类物种的社交需求，因为不这样做可能会导致异常行为的产生和表现。但确定为任何特定物种提供何种社交刺激面临诸多挑战。我回顾了近期关于褐头牛鹂（Molothrus ater）的研究工作，这些研究旨在确定对有效发育和繁殖至关重要的社交刺激。这项工作证明了社交经历在组织生殖生理和行为方面的重要性，以至于忽视这些经历可能会导致对鸟类行为的功能和机制产生误解。然而，不存在适用于所有社交物种的通用规则。确定任何物种成员所需的社交条件需要一种行为学方法，该方法要评估物种的感官、认知和生态特征，并在圈养环境设计和研究中考虑这些特征。
