Environmental chamber for studies on wild-caught mammals and birds

我们探索野生动物如何应对它们每天面临的许多环境压力。有了这笔资金，我们将购买一个独立的环境室，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将这些反应立即整合起来，并在更长的时间内甚至几代人内整合起来，以定义自然历史，进而扩展到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，面对这些压力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，对生物体反应的基本理解最好通过对照实验室研究和实地研究的结合来获得，其中观察到反应的自然变化。随着环境室的购买，我们的研究小组将首次能够严格检查在受控条件下捕获的野生鸟类和哺乳动物对温度，光周期和湿度压力源的综合反应。短期和长期研究将分别检查这些环境参数的影响，并通过将该室与其他设备耦合，与其他压力源（如氧气可用性降低、空气密度降低和捕食压力增加）相结合。目前，UTSC校园内没有既适合动物工作又能保持环境参数（温度、湿度、光周期）在适当范围内的设备。有了这些改进的研究能力，我们将探索可变温度和湿度对动物代谢和运动性能的直接影响，以及这些压力源通过综合应激反应和通过母体编程在代之间对动物健康的长期影响。该设备将在几个新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设备的现有研究目标和应用。

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.