Everyone has heard the theories about how to treat the infant in the womb. Talk to the infant in a nice soft voice and he or she will grow to be kind and compassionate. Listen to classical music and the baby will grow to be more intelligent. But is there really any truth behind these theories? Can the same be said for prenatal care for other species? According to a recent report from the University of Cambridge, the answer to both is yes.
Everyone has heard the theories about how to treat the infant in the womb. Talk to the infant in a nice soft voice and he or she will grow to be kind and compassionate. Listen to classical music and the baby will grow to be more intelligent. But is there really any truth behind these theories? Can the same be said for prenatal care for other species? According to a recent report from the University of Cambridge, the answer to both is yes.
!ADVERTISEMENT!A team led by Dr. Rebecca Kilner from the University’s department of zoology has conducted new research which has uncovered startling results. Mother birds communicate to their chicks even before they hatch, leaving messages in the egg that will affect the chick’s development.
Mother canaries have the ability to impart information to the chicks about the environment they will face after birth, simply by changing the conditions within the egg. For example, the message received by the chick can describe the generosity of the parents. If the parents are generous, the chick will be predisposed to begging more vigorously for food after hatching. On the contrary, if the parents are stingier, the chick will be less demanding after hatching.
The chicks will adjust their metabolism according to which message is received. This way, they can avoid either begging too little for food with generous parents, or pointlessly begging too much with stingy parents. Canary mothers benefit from passing these messages within the egg to better suit their own food supply.
This discovery was made possible by using fostering experiments. Eggs were exchanged between canary nests so that the chicks were hatched into an environment they were not expecting. The hatchlings were then observed as portraying the behavior better suited for their original nest.
According to Dr. Kilner, the discovery changes their whole understanding of avian prenatal environments. "We've known for about 20 years that maternal substances in the egg can influence how chicks develop, but the common assumption is that they are a means by which mothers manipulate their offspring in a way that suits the mother more than the chick.
"What we've shown is the reverse: these substances are actually there to suit the chick. If we muck up the message in the egg experimentally, it is the chick that is penalized directly rather than the mother."
Links to further info: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2010031003
