Collaborative Research: Parental Effects, Telomere Dynamics, and the Cross-Generational Effects of Stressors

父母所经历的压力往往会对后代产生持久的影响。一种有趣但未经证实的可能性是，父母的压力源会改变他们的基因，而这些变化可能会影响后代。本项目通过对鸟类系统的控制实验和实地调查来调查这种可能性。研究结果将有助于理解环境应激源跨代效应的机制和后果，这对理解环境变化对生物体的长期影响至关重要。这个项目包含了从高中到研究生的几个层次的学生，他们将被嵌入到一个指导网络中。这一经历将使他们在成为一名科学家的各个方面得到全面的训练，包括提案写作、在实地和实验室进行研究、演讲和准备出版物。学生将通过“改善多样性和教育研究”（RIDE）积极招募，这是一个致力于增加科学领域少数民族人数的组织，包括北达科他州的当地部落学院。此外，研究小组还将利用这项研究的数据为高中生和大学生开发基于探究的学习模块，这些模块将在部落学院展示。这个合作研究项目将评估另一种遗传机制的重要性，即压力源对后代遗传的亲本配子中的DNA（端粒）的直接影响。这种机制将成为父母压力影响后代的新途径，该研究将记录这种直接途径和任何间接途径对适应性的终生影响。这些结果将显著扩展对环境应激源跨代效应的机制和功能后果的理解，这可能对预测环境变化的长期影响至关重要。此外，本研究将提供有关野生系统端粒长度和损失率的新信息。在生理生态学中，端粒越来越多地被用作生物衰老的衡量标准，然而，关于自由生物端粒长度和损失率变化的遗传模式和适应性后果的基本知识仍然缺乏。采用的综合方法涵盖了分子，激素和整个生物体的反应，这样做将为跨代压力暴露的机制基础和功能后果提供独特的见解。研究结果将有助于我们评估不断增加的压力水平将如何影响年龄结构的人口动态，以及减轻早期逆境对个人及其后代的影响的潜力。

Stress experienced by parents often has long-lasting effects on offspring. One intriguing but untested possibility is that stressors in parents alter their genes and these changes may then influence offspring. This project investigates this possibility using controlled experiments and field surveys in a bird system. The results will contribute to the understanding of mechanisms and consequences of cross-generation effects of environmental stressors, which is critical to understanding the long-term impacts of environmental change on organisms. This project incorporates students at several levels, from high school to post-graduate, who will be embedded in a mentoring network. This experience will give them thorough training in all aspects of being a scientist, including proposal writing, conducting research in the field and the lab, giving presentations, and preparing publications. Students will be actively recruited through Research to Improve Diversity and Education (RIDE), an organization that is dedicated to increasing the number of minorities in science, including local Tribal colleges in North Dakota. Moreover, the research team will also develop inquiry-based learning modules using data from the study for high school and college students that will be presented at Tribal colleges. This collaborative research project will assess the importance of an alternative mechanism of inheritance, direct effects of stressors on the DNA (telomeres) in parental gametes that are inherited by offspring. This mechanism would be a new route by which parental stress can impact offspring, and the study will document the lifetime effects on fitness of both this direct pathway and any indirect ones. These results will significantly expand the understanding of the mechanisms and functional consequences of cross-generational effects of environmental stressors, which is likely to be critical for predicting the long-term impacts of environmental change. In addition, this research will provide novel information about telomere length and loss rate in a wild system. Telomeres are increasingly used as a measure of biological aging in physiological ecology, yet there is still a lack of basic knowledge about the inheritance patterns and fitness consequences of variation in telomere length and loss rate in free-living organisms. The integrative approach employed spans molecular, hormonal and whole organism responses and in doing so will offer unique insight into the mechanistic underpinnings and functional consequences of stress exposure across generations. The results will add to our ability to assess how increasing stress levels will impact age-structured population dynamics and the potential for mitigating the impacts of early adversity for individuals and their descendants.