Exploring the Development of Olfactory Sensitivity in a Procellariiform Seabird

前体海鸟（海燕、信天翁和海鸥）在广阔的海洋上觅食，捕食斑驳分布的猎物，如鱼、鱿鱼和磷虾。它们成功的秘诀是靠嗅觉定位猎物的能力。在过去的十年里，在了解南极物种的嗅觉觅食方面取得了很大进展，无论是大型（100英里）还是小型（10英里）。在领先科学家的早期工作的基础上，首席研究员（PI）对嗅觉觅食的广泛综合研究方法扩大了海鸟如何用鼻子“看”世界的图景。现在出现了许多问题。例如，小鸡的嗅觉觅食行为是如何发展的？当其他的远洋海鸟花几个月的时间教后代如何觅食和在哪里觅食时，伞状海鸟的幼鸟在父母散去后几周就长出羽毛，在公海上存活下来。这些鸟似乎在没有父母的帮助或指导的情况下，知道如何和在哪里觅食。这怎么可能呢？从大气化学和发育神经生物学等多种学科中汲取灵感，该提案探索了这样一种假设，即在发育过程中，雏鸟通过父母接触到的气味来适应觅食时使用的气味。这种预先调整或“印记”为鸟类提供了关于它们羽翼未丰后将遇到的嗅觉景观的信息，特别是为它们提供了在哪里觅食可能富有成效的线索。本文研究了利奇风暴海燕（Oceanodroma leucorhoa）嗅觉敏感性的发展。有两个主要目标。首先，研究了雏鸡对三种与猎物相关的气味（DMS -浮游生物气味、吡嗪-磷虾气味和三甲基胺-鱼气味）和一种对照气味（苯基乙醇-玫瑰气味）的行为反应。第二个目标是确定小鸡是否通过在鸡蛋阶段预先暴露在与猎物无关的气味中来学习气味线索，然后测试这种早期暴露是否会增加小鸡在以后的生活中对气味的敏感性。拟议研究的结果将是第一个在生态重要背景下解决嗅觉发展的研究。除了她的海鸟工作，PI一直是开发新的和高度综合的方法来研究鲑鱼印记的关键人物，因此将这些想法扩展到鸟类是她工作的一个合乎逻辑的进展。总的来说，这些结果将极大地扩展我们对这些迷人鸟类感官生物学的认识。这些知识不仅对基础科学有用，而且考虑到许多物种受到威胁或濒临灭绝的状况，还可能有助于加强确保保护原伞虫的努力。此外，通过在大学资助的实地实验室建立一个研究地点，将更容易促进学生对工作的参与。肯特岛（加拿大新不伦瑞克省）是一个偏远的亚南极地区，几乎所有PI以前的工作都是在那里进行的，相比之下，肯特岛更容易和经济地进入。该地点还提供了实验室设施（通常在原虫繁殖的孤岛上没有）和来自世界各地的合作者，以及指导该领域研究生和本科生的能力。

Procellariiform seabirds (the petrels, albatrosses and shearwaters) make their living foraging over vast expanses of open ocean hunting patchily distributed prey such as fish, squid and krill. The secret to their success is an ability to locate prey by smell. Over the past decade, much headway has been made in understanding olfactory foraging of Antarctic species, both at large (100s of miles) and small (10 miles) scales. Augmenting early work by leading scientists, the Principal Investigator's (PI) broadly integrative approach to studying olfactory foraging has expanded the picture of how seabirds "see" the world with their noses.Now many questions arise. For example, how do olfactory foraging behaviors develop in chicks? While other pelagic seabirds spend months teaching offspring how and where to forage, procellariiform chicks fledge and survive the open seas weeks after their parents have dispersed. These birds appear to hatch knowing how and where to forage without aid or instruction from a parent. How is this possible? Drawing from disciplines as diverse as atmospheric chemistry and developmental neurobiology, this proposal explores the hypothesis that, during development, chicks become tuned to odors used in foraging by being exposed to them by their parents. This pre-tuning or "imprinting" provides birds with information about the olfactory landscape they will encounter after fledging, and, specifically, offers them clues about where foraging is likely to be productive.This proposal investigates the development of olfactory sensitivity in the Leach's storm petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa). There are two primary objectives. First, chicks' behavioral responses to three prey-related odors (DMS - plankton scent, pyrazine - krill scent, and trimethyl amine - fish scent) and to one control odor (phenyl ethyl alcohol - rose scent) will be characterized. The second objective will determine whether chicks learn odor cues by pre-exposing chicks to a non-prey related odor during the egg stage, and then testing whether this early exposure increases sensitivity to that odor later in life.Results from the proposed research will be among the first to address the development of olfaction in an ecologically important context. In addition to her seabird work, the PI has been a key player in developing new and highly integrative approaches to studying salmon imprinting, so extending these ideas to birds is a logical progression of her work. Overall, the results will greatly extend our knowledge of the sensory biology of these fascinating birds. Such knowledge not only is useful to basic science, but also may help bolster efforts to ensure the conservation of procellariiforms, given the threatened or endangered status of many species. Moreover, by establishing a study site at a University-sponsored field laboratory, student involvement in the work will be much more easily fostered. Relative to the remote sub-Antarctic, where virtually all of the PI's previous work has been conducted, Kent Island (New Brunswick, Canada) is easily and economically accessible. The location also provides access to lab facilities (not typically available on isolated islands where procellariiforms breed) and collaborators from around the world, as well as the ability to mentor graduate and undergraduate students in the field.