Effects of environmental modification and early life stress on wildlife behaviour, physiology, and fitness.

环境改变和早期生活压力对野生动物行为、生理和健康的影响。

• 批准号: RGPIN-2020-04485
• 负责人: Newman, Amy
• 金额: $ 3.42万
• 依托单位: University of Guelph
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=716091
• 关键词: Effects; environmental; modification; early; life

My research program focuses on the persistent effects of the early-life environment by integrating ecological and physiological perspectives in wild populations. The early-life environment, increasingly shaped by powerful anthropogenic factors, can have lasting effects across an animal's life history stages, but, the downstream influences on individual behaviour, physiology and fitness are not well understood. Over the next five years, my lab will focus on the ultimate and proximate effects of urbanization and agricultural intensification, which are two profound drivers of environmental modification and organisms inhabiting these environments are subject to a suite of novel stressors and selective pressures. Using two well-established model systems (savannah sparrows and grey squirrels), I propose to investigate how early life stress associated with urban and agricultural environments impact wildlife physiology, behaviour and fitness, and how environmental modification impacts the bidirectional relationship between the microbiome and neurophysiology (the gut-brain axis). Evaluating and testing the effects of modified environments on wildlife ecophysiology is a critical dimension of understanding the long-term impacts of environmental change. Our proposed studies on wild, marked, populations provide an unparalleled opportunity to test novel predictions on ecological and physiological outcomes of environmental stress associated with modified landscapes, and, more generally, inform about the mechanisms that organisms use to cope with rapid environmental changes. Further, this research will foster the multidisciplinary skill development of diverse HQP, provide opportunity to engage in public outreach and citizen science, and provide insights for understanding how environmental stress influences the ecophysiology of a range of vertebrate taxa.

我的研究项目通过整合野生种群的生态和生理角度，专注于早期生命环境的持续影响。早期生活环境越来越多地受到强大的人为因素的影响，可以在动物的生活史阶段产生持久的影响，但对个体行为、生理和健康的下游影响尚不清楚。 在接下来的五年里，我的实验室将专注于城市化和农业集约化的最终和近期影响，这是环境变化的两个深刻驱动因素，居住在这些环境中的有机体受到一系列新的压力源和选择性压力的影响。使用两个成熟的模型系统(稀树草原麻雀和灰色松鼠)，我建议调查与城市和农业环境相关的早期生活压力如何影响野生动物的生理、行为和健康，以及环境改造如何影响微生物群和神经生理学(肠道-脑轴)之间的双向关系。评估和测试环境变化对野生动物生态生理学的影响是理解环境变化长期影响的一个关键方面。我们提出的关于野生、有标记的种群的研究提供了一个无与伦比的机会来测试与改变的景观相关的环境压力的生态和生理结果的新预测，更广泛地，提供关于生物用来应对快速环境变化的机制的信息。此外，这项研究将促进不同HQP的多学科技能发展，提供参与公共宣传和公民科学的机会，并为理解环境压力如何影响一系列脊椎动物的生态生理学提供洞察力。