Journal
ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE
Volume 3, Issue 3, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160008
Keywords
anti-predator behaviour; development; habitat complexity; roosting; spatial cognition; survival
Categories
Funding
- University of Exeter
- Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust
- ERC Consolidator Award [616474]
- European Research Council (ERC) [616474] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
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Subtle variations in early rearing environment influence morphological, cognitive and behavioural processes that together impact on adult fitness. We manipulated habitat complexity experienced by young pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) in their first seven weeks, adding a third accessible dimension by placing elevated perches in their rearing pens mimicking natural variation in habitat complexity. This simple manipulation provoked an interrelated suite of morphological, cognitive and behavioural changes, culminating in decreased wild mortality of birds from complex habitats compared with controls. Three mechanisms contribute to this: Pheasants reared with perches had a morphology which could enable them to fly to the higher branches and cope with prolonged roosting. They had a higher propensity to roost off the ground at night in the wild. More generally, these birds had more accurate spatial memory. Consequently, birds were at a reduced risk of terrestrial predation. The fitness consequences of variation in early rearing on behavioural development are rarely studied in the wild but we show that this is necessary because the effects can be broad ranging and not simple, depending on a complex interplay of behavioural, cognitive and morphological elements, even when effects that the treatments provoke are relatively short term and plastic.
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