Diet or exercise? How do birds cope with transitions in workload associated with parental care or fledging?

饮食还是运动？

• 批准号: RGPIN-2018-03949
• 负责人: Williams, Tony
• 金额: $ 4.01万
• 依托单位: Simon Fraser University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=690547
• 关键词: Diet; exercise; How; do; birds

Exercise can be defined as physical activity involving movement supported by sustained locomotor performance, cardiovascular adaptations, and increases in energy expenditure above basal levels. Such a broad definition can theoretically be applied to many routine activities in free-living animals, e.g. foraging, escaping predators, finding mates, providing parental care. These activities are essential for reproduction and survival, and costs of under-performing' are a matter of life and death for free-living animals unlike human athletes at the Olympics. However, it's unclear if concepts such as “exercise” and “training” apply to free-living animals? Do natural populations harbour “couch potatoes” and athletes? Do free-living animals “train” to improve their performance in fitness-related activities (e.g. feeding chicks) and how do animals prepare for, and deal with, rapid transitions in workload or locomotor performance (i.e. “getting up off the couch”)?***In a free-living population of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) we focus on two phases of breeding that involve natural, abrupt changes in “workload”: a) from incubation (relatively sedentary) to chick-rearing (highly active) in adult females, and b) from enforced inactivity as nestlings to sustained flight at fledging in young birds. Research will integrate life-history, ecology, behaviour and physiology. In adults, we will directly manipulate costs of workload (using wing-clipping) or the benefit of workload (using egg removal to delay hatching and, thus, reproductive value' of investing in chicks). We will monitor activity of all females 24/7 using an automated radio tracking, obtain detailed information on foraging behaviour using accelerometers, night-vision and video cameras, and combine this with comprehensive physiological analysis (a suite of 15 physiological traits). We will test the hypotheses that female parents use a relatively simple physiological adaptation (mass loss) to adjust to varying workload demands, i.e. they “diet”. We will also explore the significance of novel' aspects of behaviour associated with parental care (e.g. nocturnal activity). Are these important behaviours allowing foraging for self-maintenance, or perhaps even opportunities for “exercise” allowing birds to get in shape ready for chick-rearing? In chicks, we will directly manipulate development (e.g. using hormonal treatment) to test the hypothesis that individual variation in growth rate is constrained by physiological mechanisms and that physiological maturity at fledging (not somatic maturity) is the main determinant of post-fledging behaviour, flight ability and survival. In addition, we will test the idea that chicks use “push-ups” as a form of pre-fledging exercise to assess their body mass and determine their required pre-fledging mass recession to optimise flight ability after fledging.**

锻炼可以定义为体育活动涉及运动，其运动能力持续的运动性能，心血管适应以及高于基本水平的能量消耗的增加。从理论上讲，这种广泛的定义可以应用于自由生活动物的许多常规活动，例如觅食，逃避掠食者，寻找伴侣，提供父母的护理。这些活动对于繁殖和生存至关重要，而且表现不佳的成本是自由生活动物意外的人类运动员的生与死问题。但是，目前尚不清楚诸如“运动”和“训练”之类的概念适用于自由生活的动物？天然人口是否藏有“沙发土豆”和运动员？自由活动的动物“火车”以提高与健身相关的活动（例如喂养小鸡）的表现，动物如何为工作量或运动表现的快速过渡做准备，并应对快速过渡（即“起床”）？ （相对久坐的）成年女性的养鸡（高度活跃），b）从强制不活动作为雏鸟到幼鸟逃亡时持续飞行。研究将整合生活历史，生态，行为和生理学。成年人，我们将直接操纵工作量的成本（使用机翼滑行）或工作量的好处（使用鸡蛋去除延迟孵化，从而延迟了对小鸡的投资的生殖价值”。我们将使用自动无线电跟踪来监视所有女性的活动，并获得有关使用加速度计，夜视和摄像机觅食行为的详细信息，并将其与全面的物理分析（15个生理特征的套件）相结合。我们将测试女性父母使用相对简单的生理适应（群众损失）来适应不同工作量需求的假设，即她们的“饮食”。我们还将探讨与父母护理相关的新型行为方面的重要性（例如夜间活动）。这些重要的行为是否允许觅食以进行自我维护，甚至可以“运动”的机会，使鸟儿成熟以养鸡？在雏鸡中，我们将直接操纵发育（例如，使用马匹处理）来检验以下假设：个体生长速率的变化受物理机制的约束，而果实时的身体成熟度（而不是体细胞成熟）是后翼行为，飞行能力和生存的主要确定。此外，我们将测试小鸡使用“俯卧撑”作为预先锻炼的一种形式来评估其体重的形式，并确定他们所需的预罚质量衰退以优化逃亡后的飞行能力。**