Environment Chamber for Facility for Applied Avian Research (FAAR)

面对全球环境的变化，人们对养护和保护野生动物有着强烈的兴趣——不仅因为它们的内在价值，还因为它们往往是这些变化相对程度的衡量标准。鸟类作为一个群体被广泛认为是环境问题的敏感指标——能够对细微的扰动和累积效应做出反应。然而，使用野生鸟类作为指标具有挑战性，因为很难分离出导致个体健康变化的因素，并将这些变化与野外观察到的种群下降联系起来。使用受控实验条件是确定与个体健康影响和物种减少有关的潜在机制的最佳策略之一。萨斯喀彻温大学的新应用鸟类研究设施（FAAR）于2016年1月开放，是一个多功能住房和鸟类研究设施，也是加拿大西部唯一的此类设施。它将包括最先进的室内和室外鸟类饲养区，适合各种研究物种，此外还有几个独特的研究设施，用于对家养和野生捕获的鸟类进行生态毒理学、行为、生态生理学和野生动物健康的综合研究。我们需要一个独立的步行环境室，包括在这个新的基础设施中，这是一个关键的设备，允许在一个特殊设计的房间内进行需要微调气候和光线控制的圈养研究。环境室对于需要模拟季节变化和环境条件（如极端温度、光、湿度或湿度的变化以及声音）变化的可控和可重复研究至关重要。环境室将大大提高跨学科鸟类研究设施的广度和能力，该设施由众多教师、合作者以及各级培训的学生进行，其共同目标是更好地了解野生鸟类和环境当前和未来的威胁。研究将为野生种群的保护计划提供信息，并通过提高我们对如何保护野生鸟类的理解来加强生态系统服务。

In the face of global environmental changes, there is a strong interest to conserve and protect wildlife- not only for their intrinsic value, but also because they tend to act as a gauge of the relative magnitude of these changes. Birds as a group are widely recognized as sensitive indicators of environmental problems- capable of responding to subtle perturbations and cumulative effects. Using wild birds as indicators is challenging, however, because it is difficult to isolate the factors that cause changes in the health of individuals and relate these changes to population declines observed in the wild. The use of controlled experimental conditions represents one of the best strategies to identify the underlying mechanisms related to individual health effects and species declines. The new Facility for Applied Avian Research (FAAR) at the University of Saskatchewan opening in January 2016, is a multi-purpose housing and avian research facility and the only of its kind in Western Canada. It will include state-of-the-art indoor and outdoor bird holding areas suitable for a variety of study species in addition to several unique research facilities for conducting integrated studies of ecotoxicology, behaviour, ecophysiology and wildlife health on domestic and wild caught birds. We are requesting a self contained walk in Environment chamber to include within this new infrastructure - a key piece of equipment to allow for captive studies requiring fine tuned climate and light controls within a specially designed room. The environment chamber will be essential for controlled and repeatable studies that require simulations of changing seasons and environmental conditions such as extremes of temperature, changes in light, moisture or humidity, and sound. The environment chamber will greatly enhance the breadth and capacity of the interdisciplinary avian research facility conducted by numerous faculty members, collaborators as well as students at all training levels, with a common goal to better understand current and future threats to wild birds and the environment. Research will inform conservation plans for wild populations and enhance ecosystem services by improving our understanding of how to protect avian wildlife.