High-resolution behavioral time series of Japanese quail within their social environment

Abstract

The behavioral dynamics within a social group not only could depend on individual traits and social-experience of each member, but more importantly, emerges from inter-individual interactions over time. Herein, we first present a dataset, as well as the corresponding original video recordings, of the results of 4 behavioral tests associated with fear and aggressive response performed on 106 Japanese quail. In a second stage, birds were housed with conspecifics that performed similarly in the behavioral tests in groups of 2 females and 1 male. By continuously monitoring each bird in these small social groups, we obtained time series of social and reproductive behavior, and high-resolution locomotor time series. This approach provides the opportunity to perform precise quantification of the temporal dynamics of behavior at an individual level within different social scenarios including when an individual showing continued aggressive behaviors is present. These unique datasets and videos are publicly available in Figshare and can be used in further analysis, or for comparison with existing or future data sets or mathematical models across different taxa.

Fig. 1

Schematically representation on experimental design. On the left the 4 preselection tests assed, namely, Partial mechanical restraint, Tonic Immobility, Social Interaction and Welfare assessment, and performance assessment. On the right a picture of the social group tests, where the individuals (1 male and 2 females) are observed as well as the feeder in the bottom left corner and automatic nipple in bottom right corner of the apparatus. The variables registered in each test is written in the proximity of the test name.

Fig. 2

Pilot study showing 60 s threshold for latency to stuggle during Partial Mechanical Restraint in Japanese quail treated with a subsedative anxiolytic dose of propofol. Latency to struggle during partial mechanical restraint in juvenile (31–32 days old) Japanese quail treated with either vehicle (i.e. distilled water and 20% Tween-80 (Sigma Chem. Co.)) or a propofol 10 mg/kg. Birds were placed into the restraint apparatus ten min after intraperitoneal administration. Note that birds treated with Vehicle showed struggling latencies from 0–300 s while none of the birds treated with propofol showed latencies above 60 s. Dotted line indicates this 60 s threshold.

Fig. 3

Frequency distribution of preselection test variables. Frequency distribution of (a) latency to struggle during Partial Mechanical Restraint, (b) number of inductions in Tonic Immobility test and (c) the duration of the tonic immobility, (d) latency to ambulate during the first stage and (e) total duration of aggressions in the Social Interaction test, and (f) aggressive in home cage valued by welfare assessment of cagemate. Frequency distribution of variables “a”-“d” are shown for data pooled from females and males, while variables “e”-“f” are only from males. A total of 106 animals were studied, half female and half males.

Fig. 4

Principal components analysis biplot of the preselection tests data. Each point represents (a) a female or (b) a male quail. Variables are ploted as vectors from the origen ending in black triangles. Birds used for social groups type A are shown in black circles while those used for type B are shown in gray circles (see main tet for definition). The percent of the eigenvalues of each PC are shown in brackets next to each component. Only variables with low levels (R² < 0.40) of correlations between them were used in the analysis: latency to struggle during Partial Mechanical Restraint (Lat. struggle (PMR)), number of inductions (Numb. Inductions (TI)) and the duration of the tonic immobility (Durat. t. immobility (TI)) during the Tonic Immobility test, latency to ambulate during the first stage (Lat. ambulation (SI)) and total duration of aggressions (Durat. aggression (SI)) in the Social Interaction test, and aggressive in home cage valued by welfare assessment of cagemate (Aggressive HC (WA)). A total of 106 animals were studied, half female and half males.