-->PONE-D-26-08810-->-->Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) selected for high social motivation rely on conspecifics for buffering but not learning in sociocognitive tasks-->-->PLOS One

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Academic Editor

PLOS One

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Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for submitting your manuscript. The reviewers highlighted several important issues that need to be addressed, particularly regarding methodological clarity, data interpretation, and the strength of the conclusions. The discussion should be improved by better integrating relevant literature and avoiding overinterpretation of the results. Therefore, substantial revision is required, and the manuscript will need to undergo re-assessment following revision. Regards, Arda Yıldırım

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions-->

-->Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)-->

Reviewer #1: The introduction is well written and nicely focuses on the main goal of the study. I enjoy reading it.

Methods clearly state all the procedures and details of the test nicely accompanied by figures further helping to understand the timeline and the procedures.

Discussion of the social discrimination task. One more alternative explanation might be considered and that is that for S- individuals the conspecific represents or is perceived more like competitor and thus they need to quickly extract the food before the conspecific can potentially reach it. I am just curious if the authors might think this is possible or not. From their experience with behavior of the two lines.

Overall, the discussion is again well written and includes alternative explanations like the stress sensitivity, which I appreciate.

On several places in the manuscript the authors state that the S+ individuals are more sensitive to environmental change and less flexible in their response. I would agree with the first part of the statement. As we see, there is a clear difference in behavior when the feeder changes. But the fact that we see the different behavior contradicts that they are less flexible. At least in my understanding of the term flexible is that individuals are changing their behavior based on the conditions and the “nonflexibility” means they behave all the same under different conditions. So, I would say they are more sensitive and less able to cope with the changes of conditions (not less flexible].

Reviewer #2: This study investigates differences in performance on social cognitive tasks of quail strains bred based on different levels of social motivation. The study is novel. The manuscript is well written. My comments aim to help identify areas where additional clarification would provide additional clarity and transparency. A few topics that warrant further explanation or discussion are also highlighted. These include a priori presentation of hypotheses and predictions, further discussion of study limitations and exploration of alternative explanations. Below are some specific comments for the authors’ consideration.

Abstract: Clearly written

Introduction: Clearly written and relevant. Explicitly stating the hypotheses and predicted outcomes of each test in the introduction would help further clarify the rest of the manuscript.

Materials & Methods: Mostly clear. I have a few comments for the authors to consider:

Throughout: Gaze task should be referred to as modified gaze task since gaze is not actually measured, and it is unclear where the focal bird is actually looking.

Throughout: Who scored the behaviors? Was intra and/or inter rater reliability calculated?

LN 91: Important to discuss that social motivation may drive sociability but the to are not always correlated.

LN 120: The heading title seems to be a partial sentence

LN 124: The treadmill tests, described in lines 127-137, was used to determine which birds were mated. Was mating random within groups starting with the 46th generation?

LN 176-179: This implies that one pen (one strain) was tested on any given morning and the other strain that afternoon. Is that correct?

LN 214: Did all of the tested birds meet these criteria by the end of the 12 habituation days?

LN 250-251: Based on the description it appears that all movements of the head or eye toward any part of the front partition or toward any part of the back wall were included. Given the position of the eyes this seems to cover much of the possible head movement. This uncertainty surrounding where the bird was actually looking is illustrated in the photo presented as the middle left panel of Figure 2, which shows the head oriented toward the side wall (though the eye may be looking back). Were there any criteria or the angle of the head or eye in respect to the location of the panel? Is it the case that pretty much any movement upwards was counted as long as it was sufficiently pronounced?

LN 250: Was reliability of observations quantified (inter/intra rater reliability)?

LN 356: Was the amount of mealworms presented standardized across training and testing sessions?

LN 374-276: I am not convinced that this would prevent the quail from using its sense of smell to find the mealworms. I would imagine that some amount of mealworms in the open cup would give off a stronger odor than a single one placed under a false bottom. I recommend revising the text to indicate that this was an effort to decrease likelihood that smell guided the choice, and discussing this limitation.

Statistical analyses: Clearly explained. Sufficient detail provided. However, having predictions explicitly stated earlier in the manuscript would help clarify why these models were chosen (e.g. why the control and test treatments were not compared in the modified gaze test).

LN 418: Were any corrections made for multiple testing on same date?

Results:

LN 438: The results refer to an expected outcome; it would be helpful to have predicted outcomes stated in the introduction.

LN 459: Change “et” to “and”

Discussion:

LN 507 & LN 513-522: Please see my comments about gaze not being measured. Based on the provided information, it is difficult to conclude whether or not the birds were following the demonstrator’s gaze. A discussion of assumptions about what the birds are looking at is warranted.

LN 523: On the same topic, is it possible that the data collection method simply was not sensitive enough to identify any differences given that it is uncertain where the birds were looking?

LN 512: was there any evidence that these birds simply learned more quickly overall?

LN 543-545: Could it have been that the ST birds didn’t just serve as social buffers, but were motivating the other birds to approach due to resource competition since the ST birds were allowed to feed first and birds were tested after some level of feed deprivation?

LN 612: It would have been interesting for the authors to explore alternative explanations. While the two strains were bred based on a test of social motivation, is it not possible that other changes occurred simultaneously which may have driven the observed results?

Figures & Table: Provide helpful visual representation of the methods and results.

Reviewer #3: This article explores the relationship between social behaviour – and more specifically, social motivation – and social cognitive abilities in the Japanese quail. These abilities are assessed using three tests: the gaze-following task, the social buffering task, and a social discriminationlearning task.

The question addressed in this study is highly interesting as it aims to understand the link between sociality and social cognition, in relation to the social intelligence hypothesis. This species has been little studied in relation to this issue and, as such, this study provides a valuable comparative insight into the evolutionary processes linking social complexity and social cognition.

Introduction/

The introduction is very clear. However, the authors could provide more detail on the various components or types of social abilities that can be analyzed in species, and their different levels of complexity. This would help to link these various abilities to the tests performed in the study. Indeed, these tests are described as complementary, but this is not explained. Similarly, the authors could link these social cognitive abilities to potential different neuro-biological processes.

Furthermore, in addition to the existence of strains selected for social motivation, the authors could also justify the choice of the bird model used in light of its lifestyle.

Methods/

Line 185. ST birds were used to produce the demonstrators and are reared with S+ or S- individuals. However, during the tests, the ST demonstrators, for example of a focal S- individual, comes from the pen of S+ birds. Even if I understand the need to control for social bonds between individuals, does the fact that the control birds are reared with a particular strain not lead to the development of a behavioural phenotype linked to that strain, and thus, could influence birds’ interaction and results.

Moreover, the learning tasks involved a significant duration of experimentation, which must have encompassed the birds’ sexual development and thus the onset of egg-laying in the females. Was the reproductive status of the females identical between the S+ and S- groups at the time of each test? The physiological status of individuals can alter their social behaviour, potentially leading to more aggressive behaviour. Was this type of interaction observed and recorded during the tests? How might sexual development have influenced your results?

Results/

Line 438. Even though there is no line effect on the gaze following task, it would be interesting to show the data for each line separately in Figure 5, particularly as the probability is not so far from the significance level.

Line 453. The birds’ response in Test 2 of the social buffering task appears very different from the other tests; Indeed, there is little variation in behaviour. This corresponds to the colour white. Can the authors explain this difference for this test? Is white less anxiety-inducing for quail?

With regard to the results on the social learning task, might the observed effects have been influenced by the size of the groups during the experiment? Indeed, the birds were reared in large groups, which could have affected the nature of their social relationships and thus potentially their social cognition. Indeed, previous studies on quail strains show an increase in agonistic behaviour as group size increases, as well as weaker social bonds. The authors could discuss their results in light of a potential group size effect.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) selected for high social motivation rely on conspecifics for buffering but not learning in sociocognitive tasks

PONE-D-26-08810R1

Dear Dr. SERESSIA,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Arda Yildirim, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your revised submission. The revisions have satisfactorily addressed the majority of the reviewers' comments and concerns. I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript is now recommended for acceptance and publication. Best regards, Arda Yıldırım

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

-->Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.-->

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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-->2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. -->

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.-->

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #3: Yes

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-->6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)-->

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

All comments have been addressed

All comments have been addressed

All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #3: No

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