Zeng Jinyuan, Li Yueqi, Zhao Long, Shi Yurou, Gul Saba, Shi Hongquan, Song Sen
School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
Gansu Gahaizecha National Nature Reserve, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture 747200, China.
Animals (Basel). 2023 Nov 15;13(22):3522. doi: 10.3390/ani13223522.
Investigation on food allocation among nestlings of altricial birds is crucial in understanding parent-offspring conflicts within avian families. However, there is no consensus in empirical studies regarding whether parents or offspring determine the food allocation pattern within a brood. In the Plain Laughingthrush (), we examine the relationship between parental feeding strategies and nestling begging behaviors. Due to hatching asynchrony, larger nestlings have a competitive advantage in food acquisition over their smaller brood-mates; nevertheless, if the initial food-receivers were already satiated and did not immediately consume the food, parents would retrieve the food and re-allocate it to another nestling. This re-feeding tactic employed by parents reduced the likelihood of early-hatched nestlings monopolizing the food solely due to their larger body size. Our findings indicate that parents primarily allocated food based on nestling begging intensity, while their re-feeding tactic is determined by whether the first food-receivers have consumed the food. To date, our research demonstrates that while parental food allocation primarily hinges on the begging intensity of the nestlings, the decision to re-feed is contingent upon whether the initial recipients of the food ingest it immediately.
研究晚成雏鸟类雏鸟之间的食物分配对于理解鸟类家庭中亲代与子代之间的冲突至关重要。然而，在实证研究中，对于一窝雏鸟中是亲代还是子代决定食物分配模式尚无共识。在纯色噪鹛中，我们研究了亲代喂养策略与雏鸟乞食行为之间的关系。由于孵化异步，较大的雏鸟在获取食物方面比其较小的同窝雏鸟具有竞争优势；然而，如果最初获得食物的雏鸟已经吃饱且没有立即吃掉食物，亲代就会取回食物并将其重新分配给另一只雏鸟。亲代采用的这种重新喂食策略降低了早孵化的雏鸟仅因其体型较大而独占食物的可能性。我们的研究结果表明，亲代主要根据雏鸟的乞食强度来分配食物，而它们的重新喂食策略则取决于最初获得食物的雏鸟是否吃掉了食物。迄今为止，我们的研究表明，虽然亲代的食物分配主要取决于雏鸟的乞食强度，但重新喂食的决定取决于食物的最初接受者是否立即将其吃掉。
