Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches.
Despite the wide use of zebra finches as an animal model to study vocal learning and production, little is known about impacts on their welfare caused by routine experimental manipulations such as changing their social context. Here we conduct a post-hoc analysis of singing rate, an indicator of pos...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307126 |
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| _version_ | 1841533167898460160 |
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| author | Anja T Zai Diana I Rodrigues Anna E Stepien Corinna Lorenz Nicolas Giret Iris Adam Richard H R Hahnloser |
| author_facet | Anja T Zai Diana I Rodrigues Anna E Stepien Corinna Lorenz Nicolas Giret Iris Adam Richard H R Hahnloser |
| author_sort | Anja T Zai |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite the wide use of zebra finches as an animal model to study vocal learning and production, little is known about impacts on their welfare caused by routine experimental manipulations such as changing their social context. Here we conduct a post-hoc analysis of singing rate, an indicator of positive welfare, to gain insights into stress caused by social isolation, a common experimental manipulation. We find that isolation in an unfamiliar environment reduces singing rate for several days, indicating the presence of an acute stressor. However, we find no such decrease when social isolation is caused by either removal of a social companion or by transfer to a familiar environment. Furthermore, during repeated brief periods of isolation, singing rate remains high when isolation is induced by removal of social companions, but it fails to recover from a suppressed state when isolation is induced by recurrent transfer to an unknown environment. These findings suggest that stress from social isolation is negligible compared to stress caused by environmental changes and that frequent short visits of an unfamiliar environment are detrimental rather than beneficial. Together, these insights can serve to refine experimental studies and design paradigms maximizing the birds' wellbeing and vocal output. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-717a64e1dcfb453eb96ade0bdaa15ac5 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-717a64e1dcfb453eb96ade0bdaa15ac52025-01-17T05:31:31ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01201e030712610.1371/journal.pone.0307126Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches.Anja T ZaiDiana I RodriguesAnna E StepienCorinna LorenzNicolas GiretIris AdamRichard H R HahnloserDespite the wide use of zebra finches as an animal model to study vocal learning and production, little is known about impacts on their welfare caused by routine experimental manipulations such as changing their social context. Here we conduct a post-hoc analysis of singing rate, an indicator of positive welfare, to gain insights into stress caused by social isolation, a common experimental manipulation. We find that isolation in an unfamiliar environment reduces singing rate for several days, indicating the presence of an acute stressor. However, we find no such decrease when social isolation is caused by either removal of a social companion or by transfer to a familiar environment. Furthermore, during repeated brief periods of isolation, singing rate remains high when isolation is induced by removal of social companions, but it fails to recover from a suppressed state when isolation is induced by recurrent transfer to an unknown environment. These findings suggest that stress from social isolation is negligible compared to stress caused by environmental changes and that frequent short visits of an unfamiliar environment are detrimental rather than beneficial. Together, these insights can serve to refine experimental studies and design paradigms maximizing the birds' wellbeing and vocal output.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307126 |
| spellingShingle | Anja T Zai Diana I Rodrigues Anna E Stepien Corinna Lorenz Nicolas Giret Iris Adam Richard H R Hahnloser Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches. PLoS ONE |
| title | Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches. |
| title_full | Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches. |
| title_fullStr | Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches. |
| title_short | Familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches. |
| title_sort | familiarity of an environment prevents song suppression in isolated zebra finches |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307126 |
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