Environmental chamber for studies on wild-caught mammals and birds

我们探索了野生动物如何应对它们每天面临的许多环境压力。用这笔赠款，我们将购买一个独立的环境室，在其中我们将研究温度和湿度等环境参数如何影响动物的生理和行为。我们的研究共同关注如何立即和在更长的时间段甚至几代人中整合这些反应，以定义自然历史，进而定义当前和未来的多样性和分布。生理和行为必须立即对多种环境挑战做出反应，而面对这些应激源的反应能力决定了生存。由于多种环境条件以复杂的方式变化，因此对生物反应的基本了解最好是通过基于实验室的受控研究和基于现场的研究相结合，在这些研究中观察到反应的自然变化。通过购买环境舱，我们的研究小组将首次能够在受控条件下严格检查野生鸟类和哺乳动物对温度、光循环和湿度应激源的综合反应。短期和长期研究将单独检查这些环境参数的影响，并通过将密封舱与其他设备结合起来，结合其他应激因素，如氧气供应减少、空气密度降低和捕食压力增加。目前，UTSC园区中没有既适合动物工作又能够在适当范围内维持环境参数(温度、湿度、光周期)的设备。随着研究能力的提高，我们将探索温度和湿度变化对动物新陈代谢和运动能力的直接影响，以及这些应激源通过综合应激反应和通过母体编程在世代之间对动物健康产生的长期影响。该设备将在几个新的方向上扩展我们所有研究小组的研究能力，并将支持和补充现有的研究目标和目前持有的设备的应用。

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.