I would first like to extend my deepest sympathies out to the families who lost a loved one due to bullying. Bullying is not acceptable among humans and it can cause a lot of emotional damage. It's very sad the amount of suicides that result from getting picked on. Unlike humans, Blue-footed boobies are not affected at all by bullying. This is a surprising new revelation that was researched by Hugh Drummond of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City.
He studied these curious sea birds for over two decades. He found that the older boobies in a nest, only 4 days older than the others, pecked at their younger siblings incessantly. They were even pecked up to 60 times a day! The older birds would also take their food away from them. In the first week of hatching he estimated the young birds lost about 17% of their share of the food. If food gets scare the older birds will go as far as killing the younger ones. The parents don't even intervene to stop to violence.
The results showed that at first the young birds were submissive, incapable of fighting back, and had a stress hormone present in the bloodstream. However, by the time they are ready to fledge, they have gone through a growth spurt so they do not differ in size and over their lifetime they have the same amount of offspring. They end up living normal lives even after this traumatic childhood. Drummand has speculated that evolution might have favored some kind of compensation for poor starts in booby life.
-Katie Cyr (A)
Wow that's really interesting, but not surprising. Do you think this is considered bullying or is it just survival of the fittest? Also, after this traumatic childhood, how and what do they get compensated for during the rest of their life?
ReplyDeleteAbbie Lamarre-DeJesus
This is very interesting, but strange that the older birds would go as far as killing their own siblings. Is eating you own kind common in boobies? Also how do you think these younger boobies are able to overcome difficulties in their childhood?
ReplyDeleteHimanshu Shah
I'm really surprised that the later born offspring weren't found to have fewer offspring produced during their lifetimes. I wonder if they have a mechanism to cope with the smaller amounts of food and elevated amounts of stress they are exposed to.
ReplyDeleteLauren Lynch
I feel as though this happens in a lot of species. Older members in a population have the seniority factor that entitles them to more food. I do not consider this necessarily bullying because there is a fitness motivation behind it. They are not intentionally trying to be mean to other individuals for no reason.
ReplyDeletePatrick Salome
That's so weird! do you know at what point the stress hormone goes away? Or when the growth spurt generally happens? Is there any way to know if birds that were picked on become aggressive once they are larger?
ReplyDeleteLeah Salloway
Wow, this is interesting. It reminds me of a boot camp of sorts. This goes beyond a playful wrestling behavior that most animals exhibit. I wonder what the statistics are of the birds who die from stress from this being bullied. If one rationalizes it, if the bird can not handle bullying from his own species how could it handle the stress of fighting another species? Thank for sharing this article with us :)
ReplyDelete-Meesha Sharma
Did you find any information in your research displaying the reproductive success of those individuals actually involved in doing the bullying? Is there any relationship there?
ReplyDeleteAhmed Sandakli