title: Sex-specific differences in offspring personalities across the laying order in magpies Pica pica.
abstract: Maternal effects provide an important mechanism for mothers to create variation in offspring personality, and to potentially influence offspring life history strategies e.g. creating more/less dispersive phenotypes. However, within-clutch maternal effects often vary and hence there is potential for within-clutch variation in personality. We studied the effects of hatching order on explorative and neophobic behaviour of the magpies Pica pica in relation to sex using novel environment and novel object experiments. Hatching order did affect explorative behaviour in magpie, but did so in opposite directions for either sex. First-hatched females were more explorative and had a tendency to be less neophobic, whereas in males, the reverse was true. Our results suggest that hormonal as well as post-natal environmental mechanisms could be underpinning this pattern. Future research is needed to fully understand the importance of both in creating different offspring personalities. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: insert SI title.
authors.affiliation: University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Jyväskylä, Finland.
authors.forename: Kaisa
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rokka
authors.affiliation: University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Jyväskylä, Finland.
authors.forename: Marjo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pihlaja
authors.affiliation: University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Jyväskylä, Finland.
authors.forename: Heli
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Siitari
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Brayford Pool, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN2 4LG, UK. Electronic address: csoulsbury@lincoln.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Carl D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Soulsbury
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D046109:Passeriformes / Q000502:physiology*; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology*; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology*; D012737:Sex Factors
keywords: Exploration behaviour; Hatching asynchrony; Hormones; Maternal effects; Personality; Pica pica