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的问题是根本和紧迫的。确定压力反应差异的原因需要了解压力反应如何在人群内和人群之间变化，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压力源做出反应，这种反应对于应对直接威胁很重要，但它也可能造成重大损害。应激恢复力是快速有效地终止应激反应的能力，可能是在不断变化的环境中持续生存能力的一个重要预测指标。这项研究将解决压力反应和压力恢复力如何影响一系列环境中的健康。这些实验的结果可以大大促进对易受压力和不利健康结果影响的特征的理解，并有助于预测个人，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联相结合。与康奈尔大学鸟类学实验室的教育项目合作，将制作关于生物体（包括现代人类）如何科普压力的可访问和引人入胜的多媒体作品。这些材料的目的是提高公众对科学的兴趣，并提供一个基于标准的资源，供全国中学和本科生物课程使用。研究小组还与当地环保组织和每个研究地点的研究人员合作，开发基于实地的公共外展计划。参与这项合作项目的研究人员将通过实验操纵广泛分布的鸣禽--树燕的表型和压力源（Tachycineta bicolor），以确定应激反应的特定组分的变化是否与行为、表型损伤、基因表达和适应性能够操纵自由生活和自由行为鸟类的激素应激反应的新技术将与远程监测和跟踪方面的进展相结合，以揭示激素应激反应变化的详细行为变化和健康影响。通过估计季节内和季节间性状表达的遗传力和一致性，评估选择塑造负反馈功效的潜力。在从阿拉斯加到田纳西州的不同环境中繁殖的四个种群的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生存和繁殖的能力。通过本项目获得的数据将存储在主要研究者和合作者维护的数据库中，并通过Cornell 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公布。

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.