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Article: New ethology study findings have been reported by J.G. Burns and colleagues.
- Article from:
- Science Letter
- Article date:
- February 24, 2009
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"Animals bred for captivity often have smaller brains and behave differently than their wild counterparts. These differences in brain size have been attributed to genetic changes resulting from, for example, inbreeding depression and pleiotropic effects of artificial selection for traits such as docility," investigators in France report (see also Ethology).
"A critical question, though, is whether these differences in brain size are due to plastic responses to the environment, not just genetic changes. We observed a large reduction in brain size in first generation, lab-reared female guppies compared with wild-caught ones (19% smaller telencephalon, 17% smaller ...