Induction of parental behavior in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica).
The Japanese quail is a precocial species, and because of its relatively rapid development, sexual maturation in about 40 days after hatching, and prolific breeding capacity, it promises to become an organism well suited for avian research. One stumbling block has been the inability to induce, with any consistency, parental behavior in laboratory stocks. The study reported herein demonstrates a method for establishing a self-perpetuating population under seminaturalistic conditions. In addition, given the limitions of finite space, chick mortality appears to have been mostly density dependent, thus indicating that the increase in the size of the population is circumscribed in part by population density.
D000374:Aggression; D000818:Animals; D003370:Coturnix; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007178:Inbreeding; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009026:Mortality; D009425:Nesting Behavior; D011156:Population Density; D011784:Quail; D012641:Selection, Genetic