EAPSI: Color-Linked Hormonal and Behavioral Patterns in the Polymorphic Gouldian Finch (Erythrura Gouldiae)

动物行为研究越来越重视个体行为和个体遵循某些策略的可靠性。在许多物种中，这些行为类型与激素模式有关，并允许预测个体表型。黄翅雀（Erythrura gouldiae）是一种极度濒危的澳大利亚雀，呈现出三种不同的颜色变化。每种头部颜色都代表着可靠的激素和行为模式，但没有研究试图将这些特征直接联系起来。一系列将个体性格特征与类固醇激素模式联系起来的实验将在圈养的雀群中进行。这项工作将与澳大利亚悉尼麦考瑞大学的西蒙·格里菲斯博士合作完成。格里菲斯博士是澳大利亚雀类行为和生理学方面的著名专家，也是为数不多的研究人工饲养的古尔迪安雀的研究人员之一。在澳大利亚期间，该研究员将通过在澳大利亚墨尔本迪肯大学举行的一次大型会议上的专题演讲和受邀研讨会，进一步与国际科学界进行互动。研究人员将使用捕获-约束协议来评估个体对处理压力的皮质酮反应，并观察每个个体对攻击性、探索性行为和新事物恐惧症的评分。他们将尝试将个体激素特征与他们在大胆害羞光谱上的行为得分联系起来，以测试头部颜色是否可靠地预测激素行为模式。这将是首次探索任何多态物种的不同形态之间的激素-行为关系的研究之一。该项目的结果将引起鸟类学、应激生理学和进化生物学等多个领域的兴趣，并可能有助于正在进行的野生种群恢复工作。NSF EAPSI奖是与澳大利亚科学院合作资助的。

Animal behavior studies have placed increasing importance on individual behaviors and the reliability with which individuals follow certain strategies. In many species, these behavioral types are related to hormone patterns and allow the prediction of individual phenotypes. The Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae) is a critically endangered Australian finch that presents three distinct color morphs. Each head color presents reliable hormone and behavioral patterns but no studies have attempted to directly relate these traits. A series of experiments to link individual personality traits with steroid hormone patterns will be conducted using a captive population of finches. The work will be done in collaboration with Dr. Simon Griffith at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Griffith is a noted expert on Australian finch behavior and physiology and one of only a few researchers to have studied Gouldian finches in captivity. While in Australia, the Fellow will further interact with the international scientific community through a contributed talk at a major conference and an invited seminar at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.The researchers will use a capture-restraint protocol to evaluate the corticosterone response of individuals to handling stress and each individual will be observed to score aggression, exploratory behavior, and neophobia. They will attempt to link individual hormone profiles with their behavioral scores on the bold-shy spectrum to test whether head color reliably predicts hormone-behavior patterns. This will be one of the first studies to explore such hormone-behavior relationships across different morphs of any polymorphic species. Results of this project will be of interest to diverse fields such as ornithology, stress physiology, and evolutionary biology, and may contribute to ongoing recovery efforts in wild populations of the Gouldian finch. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaborationwith the Australian Academy of Science.