Environmental chamber for studies on wild-caught mammals and birds

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

We explore the ways in which wild animals deal with the many environmental stressors they face each day. With this grant we will purchase a stand-alone environmental chamber in which we will study how environmental parameters like temperature and humidity affect animal physiology and behavior. Our research collectively concerns how these responses are integrated both immediately and over longer time periods, and even generations, to define natural history and, by extension, current and future diversity and distribution. Physiology and behavior must immediately respond to multiple environmental challenges and the capacity for response in the face of these stressors defines survival. Because multiple environmental conditions change in complex ways, a fundamental understanding of organismal response is best obtained from a combination of controlled lab-based studies and field based studies in which natural variation in response is observed. With the purchase of an environmental chamber our research groups will, for the first time, be able to rigorously examine integrated responses to temperature, light cycle, and humidity stressors on wild caught birds and mammals under controlled conditions. Short term and long term studies will examine the effects of these environmental parameters individually, and, by coupling of the chamber with other equipment, in combination with other stressors such as reduced oxygen availability, reduced air density, and increased predation pressure. Currently, no equipment on the UTSC campus exists that is both appropriate for animal work and capable of maintaining environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, light cycle) across appropriate ranges. With these improved research capacities we will explore the immediate effects of variable temperature and humidity on animal metabolism and locomotor performance as well as the longer term effects these stressors have on animal health through the integrated stress response and between generations via maternal programming. This equipment will expand research capabilities for all our research groups in several new directions and will support and complement existing research goals and applications for currently held equipment.