Post- and pre-natal influences of mother in birds: A review in Japanese quail
Résumé
The behavioural development is a complex phenomenon that refers to the setting up and the modification of behaviours throughout the animal’s life. The behavioural development is influenced by epigenetic parental effects and especially by maternal influences. We propose to review our works of postnatal and parental influences on behavioural in birds. So, in quail and hen, the mother’s presence during the mothering phase influences the feeding behaviour, the spatial exploitation, behavioural rhythm but also the emotive and social characteristics of their adoptive chicks. Moreover, the mother’s characteristics can also conduct their young to a particular behavioural developmental way. Indeed, we demonstrated that mother can non genetically transmit a part of her emotional reactivity, social motivation, food preference, circadian rhythm and relation to humans. More recently, we investigated the prenatal effects by the modulation of several hormones’ levels into the egg. We demonstrated that the life social environment and the behavioural characteristic of the laying female (e.g., her relationship with human) influence the androgen levels in the egg and the emotional phenotype of the offspring.