Department of Behavioural Ecology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 12;11(1):712. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-80466-z.
Studies investigating parent offspring recognition in birds led to the conclusion that offspring recognition is absent at the early nestling stage. Especially male songbirds were often assumed to be unable to discriminate between own and foreign offspring. However, olfactory offspring recognition in birds has not been taken into account as yet, probably because particularly songbirds have for a long time been assumed anosmic. This study aimed to test whether offspring might be recognised via smell. We presented zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) parents either the odour of their own or that of foreign nestlings and investigated whether the odour presentation resulted in a change in the number of head saccades, i.e. the rapid horizontal turning of the head, with which birds scan their environment and which can be used as a proxy of arousal. Our experiment indicates that male zebra finches, in contrast to females, differentiate between their own and foreign offspring based on odour cues, as indicated by a significant differences in the change of head saccadic movements between males receiving the own chick odour and males receiving the odour of a foreign chick. Thus, it provides behavioural evidence for olfactory offspring recognition in male zebra finches and also the existence of appropriate phenotypic odour cues of the offspring. The question why females do not show any sign of behavioural response remains open, but it might be likely that females use other signatures for offspring recognition.
研究鸟类亲代-子代识别的结果表明，在早期雏鸟阶段不存在子代识别。特别是雄性鸣禽通常被认为无法区分自己的和外来的后代。然而，鸟类的嗅觉子代识别尚未被考虑在内，可能是因为长期以来，特别是鸣禽被认为是没有嗅觉的。本研究旨在测试是否可以通过嗅觉来识别后代。我们向斑胸草雀（Taeniopygia guttata）亲鸟展示了自己或外来雏鸟的气味，并观察气味呈现是否会导致头部扫视次数的变化，即鸟类快速水平转头扫描环境的次数，这可以作为唤醒程度的替代指标。我们的实验表明，雄性斑胸草雀与雌性不同，它们可以根据气味线索区分自己的和外来的后代，因为雄性接受自己雏鸟气味和接受外来雏鸟气味时头部扫视运动的变化有显著差异。因此，它为雄性斑胸草雀的嗅觉子代识别以及后代具有适当的表型气味线索提供了行为证据。为什么雌性没有表现出任何行为反应的迹象仍然是个问题，但雌性可能使用其他特征来识别后代。
