Dec. 7, 2012 — The hatching order of birds
influences how they behave in adult life according to research from the
Lancaster Environment Centre. Dr Ian Hartley and Dr Mark Mainwaring (LEC) are
the authors of the study in Animal Behaviour, which looked at how the
birds' behaviour was affected by the way their parents cared for them as
hatchlings.
They found that the youngest members of zebra
finch broods are more adventurous than their older siblings in adult life.
Dr Hartley said that the study showed for the
first time that hatching order influences birds' "behavioural
repertoires" in adulthood.
Hatching eggs over a period of time, rather than
all at once, is known as "hatching asynchrony" and occurs when eggs
are incubated as soon as they are laid. For a zebra finch, this means that
birds born up to four days apart can share the same nest and must compete for
food.
The researchers experimentally controlled
hatching synchrony within clutches, so that some clutches hatched
simultaneously, while others hatched over a period of days. They then tested
the behaviour of over one hundred offspring as adults. They found the youngest
birds from asynchronously hatched clutches explored their environment more
widely.
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