Effects of Maternal Stress on the Behavioral and HPA Responses of Offspring Exposed to the Predator or Non-Predator Odor in Brandt’s Voles
Effects of Maternal Stress on the Behavioral and HPA Responses of Offspring Exposed to the Predator or Non-Predator Odor in Brandt’s Voles
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DOI：
10.17582/journal.pjz/20220424130430
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发表时间：
2022
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
Chen Gu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen Gu
捕食风险下母体应激影响子代生存策略。本研究探讨了布氏田鼠（Lasiopodomys brandtii）的母亲在怀孕期间反复暴露于捕食者气味后，后代的觅食行为和下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）的反应。我们将怀孕的布氏田鼠暴露于蒸馏水（DW，对照），兔子气味（RO，非捕食者气味）或猫气味（CO，捕食者气味）18天（60分钟/天）。一旦后代成熟为成年人，我们将它们暴露在兔子气味或猫气味中，并记录它们的行为和激素反应，以及测量下丘脑c-fos mRNA表达。雌性CO后代暴露于猫的气味花了更多的时间隐藏和更少的时间觅食，伴随着最高水平的血清促肾上腺皮质激素（ACTH），血清皮质酮（CORT），和下丘脑c-fos mRNA相比，RO和DW后代。当暴露于兔气味时，雄性RO后代比雌性表现出更多的警觉行为，而雄性CO后代比雌性表现出更多的探索行为。CO后代暴露于兔气味表现出较高水平的血清ACTH，血清CORT，和c-fos mRNA比RO和DW后代。我们的研究结果表明，由捕食者气味引起的母体应激足以引起HPA反应的改变，这些变化可能与成年雌性后代的隐藏行为增加，但觅食行为减少有关。因此，捕食者诱导的母体应激似乎有利于提高田鼠后代的生存反应.
Maternal stress influences offspring survival strategies under predation risk. This study investigated foraging behavior and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responses of Brandt’s vole ( Lasiopodomys brandtii ) offspring after their mothers had been repeatedly exposed to predator odors during pregnancy. We exposed pregnant Brandt’s voles to distilled water (DW, the control), rabbit odor (RO, non-predator odor), or cat odor (CO, predator odor) for 18 days (60 min/day). Once the offspring matured into adults, we exposed them to either rabbit odor or cat odor and recorded their behavioral and hormonal responses, as well as hypothalamic c-fos mRNA expression, were measured. Female CO offspring exposed to cat odor spent more time hiding and less time foraging, accompanied by the highest levels of serum adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), serum corticosterone (CORT), and hypothalamic c-fos mRNA, compared to RO and DW offspring. When exposed to rabbit odor, male RO offspring showed more alerting behaviors than females, while male CO offspring showed more exploring behaviors than females. CO offspring exposed to rabbit odor exhibited higher levels of serum ACTH, serum CORT, and c-fos mRNA than those in RO and DW offspring. Our findings indicate that maternal stress induced by predator odor is sufficient to induce an altered HPA response, and these changes may be associated with increased hiding behaviors but decreased foraging behaviors in adult female offspring. Predator- induced maternal stress thus appears to be beneficial to increase the survival responses of vole offspring.