文章基本信息

标题：Behavioral plasticity is not significantly associated with head volume in a wild Chestnut Thrush ( Turdus rubrocanus ) population
本地全文：下载
作者：Qingshan Zhao ; Yuehua Sun
期刊名称：Avian Research
印刷版ISSN：2053-7166
出版年度：2016
卷号：7
期号：1
页码：12
DOI：10.1186/s40657-016-0048-z
语种：English
出版社：BioMed Central
摘要：The drivers of intraspecific variation in behavioral plasticity are poorly known. A widely held hypothesis is that brain size is positively correlated with behavioral plasticity. A total of 71 Chestnut Thrushes (Turdus rubrocanus) were caught in the wild population. We quantified behavior plasticity of activity of individuals measured in the same cage across two contexts (common and with a novel object stimulation), using a random regression analysis. We then investigated whether head volume (a proxy for brain size) was associated with behavioral plasticity in activity level using Spearman rank-order correlation. We found no significant evidence that activity plasticity was associated with relative head volume. There was no sex difference in head volume or in variance in head volume. We speculate that the absence of an association between brain volume and activity behavior plasticity may result from the inaccuracy of using external skull measurements to estimate brain size, or from a particular part of the brain being responsible for plasticity in activity level.
关键词：Activity ; Behavioral plasticity ; Chestnut Thrush ; Head volume