Variation in animal material technology, such as tool use and nest construction, is thought to be caused, in part, by differences in the early-life socio-ecological environment—that is, who and what is around—but this developmental hypothesis remains unconfirmed. We used a tightly controlled developmental paradigm to determine whether adult and/or raw-material access in early life shape first-time nest construction in laboratory-bred zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata at sexual maturity. We found that juvenile access to both an unrelated adult and raw material of one color led to a majority preference (75%) by novice builders for this color of material over that for either natal-nest or novel-colored material, whereas a lack of juvenile access to both an unrelated adult and raw material led to a 4- and nearly 3-fold reduction in the speed at which novice builders initiated and completed nest construction, respectively. Contrary to expectation, neither the amount of time juveniles nor their adult groupmate spent handling the raw material appear to drive these early-life effects on zebra finches’ first-time nest construction, suggesting that adult presence might be sufficient to drive the development of animal material technology. Together these data show that the juvenile socio-ecological environment can trigger variation in at least two critical aspects of animal material technology (material preference and construction speed), revealing a potentially powerful developmental window for technological advancement. Thus, to understand selection on animal material technology, the early-life environment must be considered.

中文翻译：

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少年社会生态环境影响筑巢鸟类的材料技术

变异的动物材料技术，如工具的使用和鸟巢建设，被认为是造成的，部分由在生命早期的社会生态环境，也就是说，差异谁和什么是周围，但是这个发展的假设仍然未经证实。我们使用严格控制的发展范式来确定在实验室饲养的斑马雀科Taeniopygia guttata的早期生活中，成年和/或原材料的获取是否会首次造巢在性成熟时。我们发现，青少年接触不相关的成年材料和一种颜色的原材料，导致初学者对这种颜色的原材料的偏好高于初生嵌套或新颖颜色的原材料的偏好（75％），而缺乏这种颜色少年接触无关的成年和原材料，导致新手建造者开始和完成筑巢的速度分别降低了4倍和3倍。与预期相反，少年或成年同伴花费的时间似乎都没有对斑马雀首次筑巢的构造产生这些早期的影响，表明成年的存在可能足以推动动物的发育材料技术。这些数据加在一起表明，青少年的社会生态环境可以触发动物材料技术的至少两个关键方面的变化（材料偏好和建造速度），从而揭示了技术进步的潜在强大发展窗口。因此，要了解对动物材料技术的选择，必须考虑早期环境。