Huertas-Gómez José Ignacio, Peralta-Sánchez Juan Manuel, Soler Manuel
Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Granada, E-18071, Spain.
Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla, Avenida Reina Mercedes s/n, Seville, Spain.
Anim Cogn. 2024 Dec 24;28(1):1. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01921-2.
The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a gregarious generalist species, which makes it a good model for studying play. However, play has not been described for this species so far. We describe play behaviour in house sparrows for the first time, quantifying all play and play-related behaviours, searching for differences between the different sexes and ages, the possible association with reproductive success and the diffusion of this behaviour in the population. All behaviours were recorded from the end of 2018 breeding season to the start of the new one in 2019. Behaviours were classified into four levels of interaction of increasing complexity and intensity. Results showed that play behaviour was restricted to the breeding season, adult males played more often than the rest of the groups, and their behaviours correlated with the number of recruits they produced. Moreover, "Maximum Level" of play of the mothers significantly and positively correlated with that of their offspring, and the "Maximum Level" of an individual with the proportion of playing siblings. Despite the limitations of the present study, our results point out the existence of benefits for the reproductive success of playing individuals.
家麻雀（Passer domesticus）是一种群居的泛化物种，这使其成为研究玩耍行为的良好模型。然而，到目前为止，尚未有关于该物种玩耍行为的描述。我们首次描述了家麻雀的玩耍行为，对所有玩耍及与玩耍相关的行为进行了量化，探究不同性别和年龄之间的差异、与繁殖成功率的可能关联以及这种行为在种群中的传播情况。所有行为记录于2018年繁殖季节结束至2019年新繁殖季节开始期间。行为被分为四个互动层次，其复杂性和强度逐渐增加。结果表明，玩耍行为仅限于繁殖季节，成年雄性比其他群体更频繁地玩耍，且它们的行为与其所育幼鸟数量相关。此外，母亲的“最高玩耍水平”与其后代的该水平显著正相关，个体的“最高玩耍水平”与有玩耍行为的兄弟姐妹比例也呈正相关。尽管本研究存在局限性，但我们的结果指出了玩耍对个体繁殖成功具有益处。
