Ecology and evolutionary biology of stress in birds

我的总体目标是从生活史的角度研究鸟类应激的原因和后果。压力在动物的生活中无处不在，对它们的健康产生了普遍的影响。个体如何感知、应对和科普压力对动物的生理、行为和生态至关重要。生理机制如何调节动物与其环境之间的关系，帮助我们更好地了解生活史的多样性，即，优化有限资源配置的战略。当动物暴露于应激源时，生活史权衡尤其显著，因为它们必须在处理应激源和维持条件的竞争需求之间分配有限的资源（例如能量、营养素如类胡萝卜素、免疫功能）。可检验的假设是，最佳策略应该随着个体状况的成本和压力源的性质而变化。我用野生和圈养的鸟类研究压力的背景下，生殖的努力，性取向和鸟类如何处理人为干扰。虽然我会从很多方面评估身体状况、健康和压力，但我会特别使用我开发的一种新技术，用于量化羽毛中的皮质酮（压力激素），从而对压力生理学进行长期评估（几天到几个月）。我将操纵寄生虫负荷，饮食，食物供应和环境温度等应激因素，以调查压力在调解父母的努力与条件，后代的数量与质量等权衡中的作用。同样，我将通过实验研究皮质酮和睾酮如何调节类胡萝卜素用于性装饰品着色与免疫功能之间的权衡。我还直接操纵激素水平与植入物，并重新测试组件的下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（压力）轴的能力，这可能有助于解释巨大的变化内和物种之间的反应，和后果，压力。我的方法的新奇将把压力研究领域带入新的方向，对基础科学、兽医学、畜牧业、保护生物学和野生动物管理产生影响。

My general objective is to study causes and consequences of stress in birds from a life history perspective. Stress is ubiquitous in the lives of animals with pervasive consequences to their well being. How individuals perceive, respond to and cope with stressors is crucial to an animal's physiology, behaviour and ecology. How physiological mechanisms mediate the relationship between the animal and its environment help us better understand the diversification of life histories, i.e., strategies to optimize the allocation of limited resources. Life history trade offs are particularly notable when animals are exposed to stressors for they must allocate limited resources (e.g. energy, nutrients such as carotenoids, immune function) between the competing demands of dealing with the stressor and maintaining condition. The testable hypothesis is that the optimal strategy should vary with the cost to individual condition and nature of the stressor. I use both wild and captive birds to study stress in the context of reproductive effort, sexual ornamentation and how birds deal with anthropogenic disturbances. Although I will assess condition, health and stress in many ways, I will especially use a novel technique I developed for quantifying corticosterone (stress hormone) in feathers that allows for a long-term evaluation (days to months) of stress physiology. I will manipulate such stressors as parasite loads, diet, food supply and environmental temperature to investigate the role of stress in mediating such trade offs as parental effort vs condition, and number vs quality of offspring. Similarly, I will investigate experimentally how corticosterone and testosterone mediate trade offs between the use of carotenoids for coloration of sexual ornaments vs. immune function. I also directly manipulate hormone levels with implants, and pharmacologically test the capacity of components of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (stress) axis that may help explain the great variation within and among species in their response to, and consequences of, stress. The novelty of my approach will take the field of stress research in new directions, with impacts in basic science, veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, conservation biology and wildlife management.