Extra food provisioning does not affect behavioral lateralization in nestling lesser kestrels.

ABSTRACT: Costs and benefits of brain lateralization may depend on environmental conditions. Growing evidence indicates that the development of brain functional asymmetries is adaptively shaped by the environmental conditions experienced during early life. Food availability early in life could act as a proxy of the environmental conditions encountered during adulthood, but its potential modulatory effect on lateralization has received little attention. We increased food supply from egg laying to early nestling rearing in a wild population of lesser kestrels Falco naumanni, a sexually dimorphic raptor, and quantified the lateralization of preening behavior (head turning direction). As more lateralized individuals may perform better in highly competitive contexts, we expected that extra food pr

SUBMITTER: Soravia C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10039179 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature