DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Maternal effects of stress in a plural-breeding rodent

亲代抚育的质量影响后代的适合度。在驯化的实验室啮齿动物中，长期受到压力的母亲的幼崽得到低质量的照顾，导致幼崽产生高度反应性的应激反应。受影响的幼崽成年后会有高应激激素水平，这可能对它们未来的生存和繁殖产生严重后果。本研究探讨了野生、自由生活的啮齿动物degu （Octodon degus）的压力母亲、不良母亲护理和后代压力反应和存活率之间的关系。德格斯采用了一种独特的繁殖策略，称为“多母共育”，即多母合作抚养彼此的幼崽。这项研究还将探讨这种独特的社交策略是否能缓冲后代的产后压力。通过在野外和实验室实验中控制母鼠的压力水平和测量幼崽的压力激素水平，本研究将全面描述压力、发育和最终生存之间的联系。这种联系从未在野生的、自由生活的啮齿动物身上得到证实。本研究将解决生态学和应激生理学中尚未解决的亲代抚育与后代生存之间的关系，具有广泛的影响。这项研究的进一步广泛影响将包括通过每周一次的博客进行科学推广，该博客将纳入本科课程的课程，向老年人和初中/高中女生进行演讲，本科生研究机会，并支持年轻科学家完成她的博士研究。

The quality of parental care influences offspring fitness. In domesticated laboratory rodents, pups that have chronically stressed mothers receive low quality care, leading pups to develop highly reactive stress responses. Affected pups will have high stress hormone levels as adults, which can have severe consequences on their future survival and reproductive output. This research examines the relationship between stressed mothers, poor maternal care, and the offspring stress response and survival in the degu (Octodon degus), a wild, free-living rodent. Degus practice a unique reproductive tactic called "plural breeding with communal care" where multiple mothers cooperate to raise each other's pups. This research also will ask whether this unique social strategy can buffer the offspring against post-natal stress. By manipulating the stress levels of mothers and measuring stress hormone levels in pups in both field and laboratory experiments, this research will provide a comprehensive description of the links between stress, development, and, ultimately, survival. This link has never been demonstrated in a wild, free-living rodent. This research will have broader impacts because it will address the link between parental care and offspring survival, which is a major unsolved problem in ecology and stress physiology. Further broader impacts of this research will include scientific outreach through a weekly blog that is incorporated into the curriculum of an undergraduate course, presentations to senior citizens and middle/high school girls, undergraduate research opportunities, and support for a young scientist completing her PhD research.