The role of behavioural plasticity in shaping the responses of organisms to the cumulative effects of multiple stressors.

行为调节个体与环境之间的相互作用。在影响动物应对快速环境变化的能力的特征中，行为可塑性（个体在不同环境和时间的反应性如何变化）在动物如何应对环境变化方面起着重要作用。由于个体经常同时面临多种压力源，因此确定个体对压力源的反应如何以及为什么会影响表现，繁殖和生存是具有挑战性的。我的研究计划旨在应用和测试信息如何以及为什么一些人比其他人更好地应对改变环境，以预测未来的发展如何在快速的环境变化将影响人口规模和稳定性。作为目标，我的研究小组将确定：1）行为可塑性的变化-如探索倾向，新恐惧症和侵略性（ENA）所定义的-如何被关键环境改变（非生物和生物）因素; 2）反应性的变化是否影响性能（觅食、反捕食者、运动行为）;以及3）在多个生态情景下模拟的这些响应-性能关系对生长、繁殖和存活的后果。为了实现我的研究目标，我将使用相关的和新兴的压力，在生态系统的特点是人为引起的快速环境变化。利用当地的黄鲈种群（Perca flavescens）提出了一系列的半野生到野生的条件下，我将研究内和外的行为类型（ENA）在多种现实世界的压力下的个体差异（温度、氧饱和度和重金属毒性），并研究这些压力源如何影响运动生态（空间分布格局）的个体鲈鱼在风险敏感的觅食，他们的增长和生存。使用股票的湖泊约束大西洋鲑鱼（萨尔莫salar）批准重新引入到安大略湖，我将探讨股票相关的行为和生理（皮肤色素沉着/应激激素）应对圈养和半自然环境下的差异，然后评估他们的能力，有效地根据不同的捕食和竞争风险，以评估是否在股票的可塑性不同，并赋予股票之间的差异健身。使用一个水产养殖为基础的股票太平洋奇努克鲑鱼（Oncorhynchus tshawytscha）与已知的遗传谱系，我将调查是否男性生殖策略（运动鞋与正常男性），已经拥有独特的行为特征，可以改变饲养环境能够影响鱼类的生长速度和竞争能力。对于每个项目，我将开发基于个人的或系统动力学模型，这两种方法都是理解复杂系统在空间或时间上的行为的理想方法，以确定在各种时空或管理生态场景中，压力介导的反应中的个体性如何扩展到人口水平的影响。了解个体对不同压力源的行为反应如何不同，以及这些差异如何在可变环境中相互作用并影响种群持久性，对于了解某些物种在新环境中如何以及为什么成功或失败至关重要。将这些不同的基于个人的方法与生态情景建模相结合，可以帮助确定暴露于多种环境压力的人群所涉及的关键过程和驱动力，大大有助于基本的生态和经济相关的应用研究。

Behaviour mediates interactions between an individual and its environment. Of the traits that influence the ability of an animal to cope in response to rapid environmental change, behavioural plasticity (how an individual varies in its responsiveness across contexts and over time) plays an important role in how animals respond to environmental change. Given that individuals constantly face multiple stressors at the same time, it is challenging to determine how and why individual variation in responsiveness to stressors influences performance, reproduction and survival. My research program aims to apply and test information on how and why some individuals respond better than others to altered environments to predict how future developments in rapid environmental change will affect population size and stability. As objectives, my research group will determine: 1) how variation in behavioural plasticity - as defined by Exploration tendency, Neophobia, and Aggression (ENA) - is altered by key environmental (abiotic and biotic) factors; 2) whether variation in responsiveness affects performance (foraging, anti-predator, movement behaviour); and 3) the consequences of these response-performance relationships to growth, reproduction and survival modeled under multiple ecological scenarios. To pursue my research objectives I will be using relevant and emerging stressors within ecological systems characterized as human-induced rapid environmental change. Using a local population of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) raised under a spectrum of semi-wild to wild conditions, I will examine both within- and among-individual variation in behavioural types (ENA) under multiple real-world stressors (temperature, oxygen saturation and heavy-metal toxicity), and investigate how these stressors affect the movement ecology (spatial distribution patterns) of individual perch in relation to risk-sensitive foraging, their growth and survival. Using stocks of lake-bound Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) approved for reintroduction into Lake Ontario, I will explore stock-related differences in behavioural and physiological (skin-pigmentation/stress hormones) coping under both captive and semi-natural settings, and then assess their ability to forage effectively under varying risks of predation and competition to evaluate if plasticity within stocks differs and confers differential fitness between stocks. Using an aquaculture-based stock of Pacific Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) with known genetic pedigree, I will investigate whether male reproductive strategies (sneaker vs. normal males), that already possess distinct behavioural characteristics, can be altered by the rearing environment capable of affecting fish growth rates and competitive abilities. For each project I will develop individual-based or system-dynamics models, both ideal methodologies in understanding the behaviour of complex systems over space or time, to determine how individuality in stressor-mediated responses scale up to population-level effects during various spatiotemporal or management-ecological scenarios. An understanding of how individuals differ in their behavioural response to different stressors, and how these differences might interact within variable environments and affect population persistence is crucial for understanding how and why certain species succeed or fail in novel environments. Combining these different individual-based approaches with ecological-scenario modelling can help to identify the key processes and driving forces involved in populations exposed to multiple environmental stressors, significantly contributing to both fundamental ecological and economically relevant applied research.