Maternal mouth-to-mouth feeding behaviour in flower-visiting bats, but no experimental evidence for transmitted dietary preferences
| Autor: | Jan Bechler, Marco Tschapka, Andreas Rose, Saskia Wöhl, Mirjam Knörnschild |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Male
0106 biological sciences Plant Nectar Offspring Zoology Flowers Breast milk 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Food Preferences Behavioral Neuroscience Chiroptera Animals Nectar 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences 050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology Glossophaga soricina Maternal Behavior biology 05 social sciences food and beverages Feeding Behavior General Medicine biology.organism_classification Social learning Social Learning Female Animal Science and Zoology Licking Paternal care |
| Zdroj: | Behavioural Processes. 165:29-35 |
| ISSN: | 0376-6357 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.06.001 |
| Popis: | In addition to breast milk, several mammals feed their offspring with primary food items. This provisioning can offer both energetic and informational benefits: young might use parentally provided food as a source of nutrients, but also as a valuable option to socially learn about adults' food. For bats, there are only very few and partially anecdotal reports of adults feeding their pups with primary food, and there is also a lack of information about social learning processes during ontogeny. In the present study, we provide experimental evidence that lactating flower-visiting bats (Glossophaga soricina) provide regurgitated nectar via mouth-to-mouth feeding behaviour to their pups. After licking at their mothers' slightly opened mouth, pups defecated a marker substance that was exclusively available in the mothers' nectar diet. We additionally investigated associated informational benefits by testing for a social transmission of dietary preferences. We experimentally induced a dietary preference for specifically flavoured nectars to mothers with non-volant pups. Subsequently, after pups became volant, we tested their dietary preferences in a choice experiment. However, we found no experimental evidence that pups adopted the preferences of their mothers. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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