Exploring the Development of Olfactory Sensitivity in a Procellariiform Seabird

珍珠状海鸟(海燕、信天翁和剪毛鸟)在广阔的开阔海域觅食，捕食零星分布的猎物，如鱼、鱿鱼和磷虾。它们成功的秘诀在于通过嗅觉定位猎物的能力。在过去的十年里，对南极物种嗅觉觅食的了解取得了很大进展，无论是大范围(100英里)还是小范围(10英里)。首席调查员(PI)对嗅觉觅食的广泛综合研究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。这是对领先科学家早期工作的补充。例如，雏鸟的嗅觉觅食行为是如何发展的？当其他远洋海鸟花几个月的时间教后代如何以及在哪里觅食时，原丝虫幼鸟在父母离开后的几周内羽化并在公海中生存下来。这些鸟似乎在孵化时知道如何以及在哪里觅食，而不需要父母的帮助或指导。这怎麽可能？这项建议借鉴了大气化学和发育神经生物学等不同学科，探索了一种假设，即在发育过程中，雏鸟通过接触父母的气味而对觅食所用的气味产生适应。这种预调或“印记”为鸟类提供了羽化后将遇到的嗅觉环境的信息，具体地说，为它们提供了可能在哪里觅食的线索。这项建议调查了水母风暴海燕(Oceanodroma Leucorhoa)的嗅觉敏感性的发展。有两个主要目标。首先，将研究雏鸟对三种与猎物有关的气味(DMS-浮游生物气味、吡嗪-磷虾气味和三甲胺-鱼气味)和一种对照气味(苯乙醇-玫瑰气味)的行为反应。第二个目标是确定雏鸟是否通过在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在以后的生活中增加对这种气味的敏感性。这项拟议的研究结果将是第一批在生态重要性的背景下解决嗅觉发展的研究结果之一。除了她的海鸟研究工作外，PI还在开发研究鲑鱼印记的新方法和高度整合的方法方面发挥了关键作用，因此将这些想法扩展到鸟类是她工作的合乎逻辑的进展。总体而言，这些结果将极大地扩展我们对这些迷人鸟类的感觉生物学的了解。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，还可能有助于加强努力，确保保护原藻类。此外，通过在大学赞助的实地实验室建立一个学习地点，学生参与工作将更容易培养。相对于遥远的亚南极，国际和平研究所以前的工作几乎都是在那里进行的，肯特岛(加拿大新不伦瑞克)很容易到达，而且经济上也很方便。该地点还提供了通往实验室设施的通道(通常不在原丝虫滋生的孤立岛屿上提供)和来自世界各地的合作者，以及指导该领域的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.