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

环境挑战无处不在：风暴、食物波动、捕食威胁、疾病。人类活动正在增加许多挑战的普遍性和强度。生物体如何科普环境挑战，整合来自先前、当前和预测未来环境的各种信息，以最大限度地提高其繁殖成功率和生存率？研究计划的主要目标就是回答这个问题。通过实现这一目标，我们将能够更好地预测人口在自然和人类引起的环境变化面前如何以及是否会持续下去。使用研究的黑帽山雀，一个常见的，全年居住的加拿大，我们建议解决我们的研究目标，使用实验操作的环境（食物的可用性和线索的捕食风险），以及操纵水平的激素被认为是重要的介质对环境的反应。然后，我们将测量这些实验操作对资源投资的几个指标的影响，这些指标对生存和繁殖很重要（例如，免疫功能、身体状况、父母行为）。我们还将从个体水平扩大规模，以预测对种群动态的影响。该研究计划的独特之处在于它将调查跨季节，年份和世代的影响，从而更全面，更全面地了解生物体如何应对环境挑战。我们从这项研究中获得的见解可以通过确定重要的生活史阶段，环境因素和影响个人和人群的激素机制使加拿大人受益，这可以为加拿大和地球仪更有效地保护处于危险中的人群提供信息。此外，该研究计划将为学员提供广泛的实践机会，为他们的多元化职业道路做好准备。

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.