Stress cannot be fully avoided in an animal´s life, and the way that animals handle stress can be crucial for their health. Coping styles in animals are describing consistent sets of behaviour and physiological stress responses. Two forms of coping are typically described; a more proactive type that is more bold, active, and aggressive, and, in contrast, a less active, more shy reactive type. Coping styles can be used to learn how animals react to stress, and thus improve our handling of stress in captive animals. To investigate the existence of the reactive-proactive coping styles in the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), both male and female red junglefowl were exposed to behavioural assays measuring boldness, activity, exploration, and aggression. These behavioural measures were compared to blood plasma concentrations of the stress hormone corticosterone, hence exploring the link between behaviour and physiological response to stress. I show positive correlations between boldness, activity, and exploration measured in a novel arena test, and boldness and activity measured in a novel object test. This somewhat confirms the inter-related behavioural aspect of reactive-proactive coping styles. Further, some of these behaviours correlated with post-stress concentrations of corticosterone, which somewhat links behaviour to the physiological aspect of coping styles. This study tentatively supports the reactive-proactive coping styles by showing a link between behaviours and the physiological stress response in the red junglefowl, with some similarities to what have been observed in other species across taxa.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-166675 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Lindroth, Linnéa |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för fysik, kemi och biologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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