Linking current and future environment, physiology, behaviour, and life history in birds

环境挑战无处不在：风暴、粮食波动、掠食威胁、疾病。人类活动正在增加许多挑战的普遍性和强度。生物体如何应对环境挑战，整合来自先前、当前和预测的未来环境的各种信息，以最大限度地提高其繁殖成功率和存活率？拟议的研究计划的总体目标是回答这个问题。通过实现这一目标，我们将能够更好地预测人口在面对自然和人为引起的环境变化时如何以及是否会持续下去。通过对加拿大常住鸟类黑顶山雀（black-capped chickades）的研究，我们建议通过实验操纵环境（食物供应和捕食风险线索）以及被认为是对环境反应的重要介质的激素水平的操纵来解决我们的研究目标。然后，我们将测量这些实验操作对对生存和繁殖重要的性状（如免疫功能、身体状况、亲代行为）的资源投资的几个指标的影响。我们还将从个体层面来预测对种群动态的影响。这项研究计划的独特之处在于，它将调查不同季节、年份和世代的影响，为生物体如何应对环境挑战提供更完整、更综合的理解。我们从这项研究中获得的见解可以通过确定影响个人和种群的重要生活史阶段、环境因素和激素机制使加拿大人受益，这可以为加拿大和全球面临风险的种群提供更有效的保护信息。此外，该研究项目将为受训者提供广泛的实践机会，为他们走上不同的职业道路做好准备。

Environmental challenges are everywhere we look: storms, fluctuations in food, threats of predation, disease. And human activities are increasing the prevalence and intensity of many challenges. How do organisms cope with environmental challenges, integrating diverse information from prior, current, and predicted future environments to respond in a way that maximizes their reproductive success and survival? The broad objective of the proposed research program is to answer this question. By achieving this objective, we will be better able to predict how, and if, populations will persist in the face of natural and human-induced environmental change. Using studies of black-capped chickadees, a common, year-round resident of Canada, we propose to address our research objectives using experimental manipulations of the environment (food availability and cues of predation risk) as well as manipulations of levels of hormones thought to be important mediators of responses to the environment. We will then measure the effects of these experimental manipulations on several metrics of resource investment in traits that are important for survival and reproduction (e.g., immune function, body condition, parental behaviour). We will also scale up from the individual level to predict effects on population dynamics. This research program is unique in that it will investigate effects across seasons, years, and generations, providing a more complete and integrated understanding of how organisms respond to environmental challenges. The insight we gain from this research could benefit Canadians by identifying important life history stages, environmental factors, and hormonal mechanisms for influencing individuals and populations, which could inform more effective conservation of populations at risk in Canada and across the globe. Additionally, this research program will provide a wide array of hands-on opportunities for trainees, preparing them well for diverse career paths.