Abstract
Early-life is one of the most critical periods for behavioural and cognitive development. An unfavourable early life environment with inadequate nourishment, deprived of social interactions and parental neglect/abuse may hence result in profound cognitive and behavioural deficiencies. How these effects can be interpreted in a framework of adaptive responses and how natural selection structures developmental effects arising from early life adversity remains unclear. Intriguingly, the parental traits that contribute to early life adversity might even be transmitted across generations ("cycle of violence"). Gaining a better understanding of the relative contribution of genetic and non-genetic factors in shaping such parental traits is therefore of fundamental relevance. This project investigates how an adverse early social environment has both short- and long-lasting effects on behaviour and cognition, whether these effects are of adaptive significance, and how epigenetic or other non-genetic effects contribute to their transgenerational transmission. This will be studied using a novel model system, the canary Serinus canaria, which allows to perform sophisticated cross-fostering experiments while manipulating the social context, namely sibling competition/aggression and parental abuse/neglect, two slightly contrasting early life adversities with possibly different evolutionary trajectories, in order to ultimately link early life experiences with individual life trajectories.
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