COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Complexity and Information in Avian Signals

合作研究：鸟类信号的复杂性和信息

• 批准号: 9974740
• 负责人: William Searcy
• 金额: $ 5.71万
• 依托单位: University of Miami
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-09-01 至 2003-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9974740&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: COLLABORATIVE; RESEARCH; Complexity; Information; Avian

Drs. Nowicki and Searcy propose to test whether early nutrition affects the development of song in birds. Song development and production are controlled insongbirds by a series of well defined brain areas, which develop to a large extent during the first two months after hatching. In many species, the detailsof song are learned during this same two month interval. Nowicki and Searcy hypothesize that nutrition during this period affects the development of the song control regions in the brain and consequently affects song learning. As a test, they will manipulate level of nutrition in hand-reared sparrows during thefirst three weeks post-hatching. The sparrows will be tutored with tape-recorded songs, and the songs produced by these birds as adults will be recorded. The stressed and unstressed groups will be compared for the quality of learning, in terms of how faithfully they have copied the notes of the tutor songs, and for the quantity of learning, in terms of how many songs are learned per individual. The brains of the two groups will also be compared, for the size of the song control regions and the density of neurons in those regions. Finally, the songs of stressed and unstressed birds will be compared in terms ofhow well they function on ecologically relevant tasks.The idea that stress early in life affects brain development and hence learning ability is applicable to a wide variety of organisms, from birds to humans. Song in songbirds provides an excellent model system for studying such effects, in that the neural control, development, and ecological function of the behaviorare all relatively well known. The study will use this system to enhance our understanding of the effects of nutrition on the development of complex behaviors.

Nowicki博士和Searcy博士建议测试早期营养是否会影响鸟类鸣叫的发育。鸣禽的发育和生产是由一系列明确的脑区控制的，这些脑区在孵化后的头两个月里有很大程度的发展。在许多物种中，歌声的细节是在同样的两个月的间隔中学习的。Nowicki和Searcy假设，这一时期的营养会影响大脑中歌曲控制区的发展，从而影响歌曲学习。作为一项测试，他们将在孵化后的头三周内操纵人工饲养的麻雀的营养水平。麻雀将接受录音歌曲的辅导，这些鸟成年后发出的歌声将被录制下来。研究人员将比较压力组和非压力组的学习质量，包括他们如何忠实地抄写辅导歌曲的音符，以及学习的数量，即每个人学习了多少首歌曲。两组人的大脑也将进行比较，以了解歌曲控制区的大小和这些区域中神经元的密度。最后，有压力和无压力的鸟类的歌声将从它们在与生态相关的任务中发挥作用的程度来进行比较。生命早期的压力会影响大脑发育，因此学习能力的想法适用于从鸟类到人类的各种有机体。鸣禽的鸣声为研究这种影响提供了一个很好的模型系统，因为行为的神经控制、发育和生态功能都是相对众所周知的。这项研究将利用这一系统来加强我们对营养对复杂行为发展的影响的理解。