Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), P.O. Box 50, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Dev Psychobiol. 2011 Sep;53(6):592-600. doi: 10.1002/dev.20533. Epub 2011 Mar 1.
Environmental conditions during early development play a crucial role in shaping an organism's phenotype. To test how social group size affects stress response and behavioral characteristics, we used great tits (Parus major) from selection lines for exploratory behavior, a proxy for an avian personality trait, and birds from the wild in a brood size manipulation experiment. Nestlings were tested for stress response using an established stress test and after independence subjects were tested for exploratory behavior. Nestlings from small broods showed a stronger stress response than nestlings from normal-sized broods. Exploratory behavior was not affected by brood size but associated with sex ratio in the nest. Birds from female-biased broods became faster explorers than those from male-biased broods. The results demonstrate that early social conditions can affect physiological stress responses in nestlings and that behavioral personality traits measured after fledging can be affected by the social experience in the nest.
早期发育过程中的环境条件对生物体的表型形成起着至关重要的作用。为了测试社会群体大小如何影响应激反应和行为特征，我们使用了来自探索行为选择系的大山雀（Parus major）和来自野外的鸟类进行巢大小操纵实验。使用既定的应激测试对巢雏进行应激反应测试，独立后对巢雏进行探索行为测试。与正常大小的巢雏相比，小巢雏的应激反应更强。巢大小对探索行为没有影响，但与巢中的性别比例有关。来自雌性偏多巢的鸟类比来自雄性偏多巢的鸟类成为更快的探索者。结果表明，早期的社会条件可以影响巢雏的生理应激反应，并且在离巢后测量的行为个性特征可以受到巢中的社会经验的影响。
