Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for FY 1998

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Abstract DBI-9804183 Creagh W. Breuner This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for 1998. This fellowship provides an opportunity for the Fellow to gain additional scientific training beyond the doctoral degree and to pursue innovative and imaginative research into the fundamental mechanisms underlying the interactions between organisms and their environment at the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, community and/or ecosystem level in any area of biology supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences of the National Science Foundation. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled characterization of multiple mechanisms for glucocorticoid action in the stress response pathway in a sparrow. Survival and reproduction in the wild depend upon an animal's ability to perceive events in the environment and to adjust physiology and behavior appropriately. Unpredictable events rapidly increase levels of circulating glucocorticoids, eliciting physiological and behavioral responses and serving to avoid chronic stress. There is evidence for three glucocorticoid receptors in the avian brain: two intracellular and one membrane. These receptors should have distinctly different temporal responses to glucocorticoids and therefore different roles in the regulation of the stress response. This series of experiments characterizes and localizes these receptors in the avian brain and elucidates the pathway from a perceived stressor to behavioral changes in a free-living, seasonal vertebrate, Gambel's white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii).