The Transgenerational Influence of Social Environment in Japanese Quail (Coturnix Japonica)

Abstract

Organisms can non-genetically inherit information from their parents. For example, different social environments in which the parents breed, can induce behavioural changes in the offspring, which is thought to be adaptive. To study whether non-genetic inheritance is indeed adaptive we tested whether the (grand) maternal social environment induces socialbehavioural changes in the offspring, and whether they would react differently to social isolation. To see if there are any transgenerational effects as well we included three generations in our study. Japanese quail (F0) and their offspring (F1) were kept in either pairs or groups during breeding. We then tested female chicks of the third generation (F2) in a two-phase isolation test, quantifying their behavioural reaction to isolation. During the first phase,a chick was placed in an empty compartment, while during the second phase of the test, a mirror or a black screen (control) was introduced to test the reaction of the chicks to a “conspecific”. We found that the F0pairF1pair (PP) offspring walked more than the offspring of F0groupF1pair (GP) and F0groupF1group (GG). The social environment of F0 influenced F2 chick’s behavioural parameters showing that chicks with F0pair grandmothers were less disturbed and showed more explorative behaviour than chicks with F0group grandmothers. However, the social environment of F1 did not significantly influence behavioural parameters at all, possiblybecause of strong effects of F0 or because of males being continuously present in F0 but not in F1. There was no different response seen between the mirror and the black screen.