Nestling barn owls beg more intensely in the presence of their mother than in the presence of their father

Nestling begging behaviour may be an honest signal of need used by parents to adjust optimally both feeding rate and within-brood food allocation. Although several studies showed that mothers and fathers can be differentially responsive to nestling begging behaviour with one parent showing a stronger tendency to feed the offspring that beg the most, little information is yet available on whether offspring beg for food at different intensities from the mother than father. In the present study, we investigated in nestling barn owls whether the intensity of vocal begging behaviour in the presence of the mother and in the presence of the father is different. A difference is expected because reproductive tasks are divided between the sexes with fathers bringing more food items to the nest than mothers. The results show that although mothers transfer their prey item to one of the offspring more rapidly than fathers once in their nestbox, nestlings begged more intensely in the presence of their mother than in the presence of their father. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence that offspring vocalize to different levels in the presence of their mother than in the presence of their father.

Études sur la vie de Bossuet : jusqu'à son entrée en fonctions en qualité de précepteur du dauphin (1627-1670). T.2 / par A. Floquet,...

Comprend : Sur le style et la lecture des écrivains et des pères de l'église pour former un orateur

Études sur la vie de Bossuet : jusqu'à son entrée en fonctions en qualité de précepteur du dauphin (1627-1670). T.3 / par A. Floquet,...

Comprend : Sur le style et la lecture des écrivains et des pères de l'église pour former un orateur

Études sur la vie de Bossuet : jusqu'à son entrée en fonctions en qualité de précepteur du dauphin (1627-1670). T.1 / par A. Floquet,...

Comprend : Sur le style et la lecture des écrivains et des pères de l'église pour former un orateur

Réponses de la musaraigne musette Crocidura russula, aux marquages odorants d'individus de son espèce (Insectivota, Soricidae)

In order to evaluate the reaction to conspecifics scent tracks of Crocidura russula, a shrew with poorly developped territorial behaviour, simple choice tests in a Y-shaped systems were used. C. russula prefers a marked path to an unmarked one, the tracks of an unknown individual to its own, the tracks of an individual of the opposite sex to those of an individual of the same sex, and the tracks of its sexual partner to those of another individual of the same sex. The choices between two tracks gave a less obvious result than the choices between a marked path and an unmarked one. Ecological and social implications of these results are discussed.