MALE FAMILIARITY AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR: TWO MODULATORS OF FEMALE JAPANESE QUAIL SOCIAL PREFERENCES

PELLEGRINI, S.; GUZMÁN, D. A.; MARIN, R H

Congreso; POULTRY SCIENCE ASSOCIATION Annual Meeting; 2020

POULTRY SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

Sexually experienced female Japanese quail that haveobserved an aggressive interaction between a pair of males appear to preferthe less aggressive male, while the females with no previous sexualexperience prefer the aggressive one. Although those studies weredeveloped in a set up where birds can only interact through a glassseparation (no physical contact), social proximity was discussed in terms ofreproductive preferences. Another factor that can modulate the birds? choiceto interact with conspecifics is the familiarity with the potential partner. Hereinwe assessed whether female quail can differentially modulate their socialinteractions with known or unknown males after observing them taking a highvs. a low aggressive role in a male-male encounter (four experimental groupcombinations). Birds were housed in male-female pairs during the rearingperiod and all females studied were sexually experienced. At 100 d of age,two males were tested in the presence of their two female partners thatremained as audience behind a wire partition in two separatedcompartments. After the male-male interaction, males were classified aseither high or low aggressives. Then, the female social interactions with thosemales were individually evaluated in a novel environmental set up thatcombined the two males fitted with an individual physical barrier (IPB) ontheir back, the female with no IPB and gated partitions within the apparatus.Thus, only females can freely ambulate through the gates and visit allcompartments. This novel social test allows the females to choose betweenremaining separated from each of the two males that are restrained inopposite sides of the apparatus, or to voluntarily enter their environment andphysically interact with them. Differences in the time spent with or near eachmale, numbers of mating and aggressions observed were analyzed usingmixed GLM. Females spent more time near their known male partner thanwith the unknown male and regardless of the male aggressiveness observedwhich suggest that familiarity strongly favors female social reinstatement.However, females copulated equally with both males regardless of theirfamiliarity or male aggressiveness during male-male interaction. Finally,females behaved more aggressively than males and were even moreaggressive towards the unknown males. Furthermore, females were moreaggressive towards the males that were highly aggressive during the malemaleinteractions than towards the males that showed a less aggressivebehavior. Taken together, the observed female social behavior suggests that the time spent near a conspecific or the aggressiveness performed againstthem cannot be used as reliable indicators of sexual preference.