Collaborative Research: Coping with Stress: Integrating Hormones, Behavior, Gene Expression, and Fitness

为什么有些人比其他人更善于应对压力，这是一个基本而紧迫的问题。确定压力反应差异的原因需要了解压力反应在种群内和种群间是如何变化的，以及这些差异如何影响生存和繁殖。生物体通过行为和生理对各种各样的压力源做出反应，这种反应对于应对眼前的威胁很重要，但它也可能造成实质性的损害。压力恢复力是快速有效地终止压力反应，可能是在不断变化的环境中坚持能力的重要预测指标。这项研究将探讨压力反应和压力恢复能力如何影响各种环境下的健康。这些实验的结果可以显著地促进对压力源和不利健康结果的脆弱性特征的理解，并有助于预测个体、种群和物种在不断变化的环境中持续存在的潜力。这项研究将以几种方式与教育和外展活动结合起来。与康奈尔鸟类学实验室的教育项目合作，将制作通俗易懂、引人入胜的多媒体作品，讲述包括现代人类在内的生物体如何应对压力。这些教材的设计将提高公众对科学的兴趣，并为全国的中学和本科生物学课程提供基于标准的资源。研究小组还与每个研究地点的当地环保组织和研究人员合作，制定以实地为基础的公共宣传计划。参与该合作项目的研究人员将通过实验操纵分布广泛的鸣禽——树燕（Tachycineta bicolor）的表型和应激源暴露，以确定应激反应的特定成分的变化是否与行为、表型损伤、基因表达和适应性有因果关系。能够控制自由生活和行为自由的鸟类的激素应激反应的新技术将与远程监测和跟踪的进展相结合，以揭示激素应激反应变化的详细行为变化和适应性影响。通过估计季节内和季节间性状表达的遗传性和一致性，可以评估选择的潜力，以形成负反馈的效力。从阿拉斯加到田纳西州，在不同的环境中繁殖的四个种群进行协调实验，将解决压力反应的特定组成部分的变化如何影响在压力源存在下的生存和繁殖能力。通过该项目获得的数据将存储在由首席研究员和合作者维护的数据库中，并通过康奈尔大学eCommons设施存档。数据将作为出版物的补充材料提供，并在项目结束后五年内向公众提供。

The question of why some individuals are better at coping with stress than others is fundamental and pressing. Identifying the causes of differences in the stress response requires understanding how the stress response varies within and across populations, and how these differences affect survival and reproduction. Organisms respond to a diversity of stressors through behavior and physiology, and this response is important for coping with immediate threats, yet it can also impose substantial damage. Stress resilience is the rapid and effective termination of the stress response and may be an important predictor of the capacity to persist in changing environments. This research will address how stress responsiveness and stress resilience affects fitness across a range of environments. The results of these experiments could significantly advance understanding of the traits that drive vulnerability to stressors and adverse health outcomes, and help to predict the potential for individuals, populations, and species to persist in a changing environment. This research will be integrated with education and outreach in several ways. A partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's education program will produce accessible and engaging multimedia pieces on how organisms, including modern humans, cope with stress. These materials will be designed to enhance public interest in science, and to provide a standards-based resource for use in secondary schools and undergraduate biology courses nationwide. The research team is also collaborating with local environmental groups and researchers at each study site to develop field-based public outreach programs.The researchers engaged in this collaborative project will experimentally manipulate phenotype and exposure to stressors in a widely distributed songbird, the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor), to determine whether variation in specific components of the stress response are causally linked to behavior, phenotypic damage, gene expression, and fitness. Novel techniques that enable the manipulation of the hormonal stress response in free-living and freely-behaving birds will be coupled with advances in remote monitoring and tracking to reveal the detailed behavioral changes and fitness effects of variation in the hormonal stress response. The potential for selection to shape the efficacy of negative feedback will be assessed by estimating the heritability and consistency of trait expression within and across seasons. Coordinated experiments across four populations that breed in differing environments from Alaska to Tennessee will address how variation in specific components of the stress response influence the ability to survive and reproduce in the presence of stressors. The data obtained through this project will be stored in databases maintained by the Principal Investigator and collaborators, and archived through the Cornell eCommons facility. Data will be provided as supplementary material to publications, and made publicly available within five years of the conclusion of the project.