DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Energetic Regulation of Seasonal Sickness Behaviors

论文研究：季节性疾病行为的能量调节

• 批准号: 1310749
• 负责人: Gregory Demas
• 金额: $ 2.03万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2015-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1310749&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Energetic; Regulation; Seasonal

Upon infection, animals display a collection of behaviors called "sickness behaviors." Studies of sickness behaviors in seasonally breeding species have shown that the magnitude of an animal's response to infection varies across seasons. Seasonal modulation of sickness behaviors may be a mechanism to avoid over-expending energy or missing a reproductive opportunity, but suppressing the expression of these behaviors may put an organism at greater risk of not being able to clear an infection. Therefore, the degree to which an organism expresses sickness will have profound effects on its survival and reproductive success. When comparing across studies, a clear pattern emerges in that sickness behaviors are attenuated in the season in which an animal has the lowest energy reserves; however, the causative nature of this relationship has not been tested experimentally. The project's working hypothesis is that seasonal variation in sickness behaviors is due to seasonal variation in energy stores. The specific aims of the research are to: 1) determine the contributions of seasonal changes in food availability on sickness behaviors, 2) determine how metabolic hormones influence variation in sickness behaviors, and 3) evaluate the contributions of experimental manipulations of food availability and metabolic hormones on endocrine and immunological factors that directly mediate sickness behavior in seasonally breeding Siberian hamsters. An understanding of the physiological signals that act to modulate the display of sickness behaviors will enhance our knowledge of how environmental conditions affect how an animal responds to an infection. The results of this research will contribute to the current initiatives to understand disease susceptibility as a function of pathogen prevalence (i.e., disease ecology) and host immune function (i.e., ecoimmunology). Additionally, this work has provided opportunities to engage diverse undergraduates in research training and will continue to do so as these projects are completed.Data will be made available on Research Data Complex (RDC), http://pervasive.iu.edu/hps/rdc

感染后，动物表现出一系列称为“疾病行为”的行为。季节性繁殖物种中疾病行为的研究表明，动物对感染的反应的大小在整个季节各不相同。疾病行为的季节性调节可能是避免过度表现能量或缺少生殖机会的机制，但是抑制这些行为的表达可能会使生物体更大的风险无法清除感染。因此，生物体表达疾病的程度将对其生存和生殖成功产生深远影响。在整个研究中进行比较时，在动物具有最低能量储量的季节中会减弱疾病的行为。但是，这种关系的因果性质尚未通过实验测试。该项目的工作假设是，疾病行为的季节性变化是由于能量储存的季节性变化所致。研究的具体目的是：1）确定食物可用性对疾病行为的季节性变化的贡献，2）确定代谢激素如何影响疾病行为的变化，3）评估食物可用性和代谢性实验操作的贡献内分泌和免疫学因素的激素直接介导季节性繁殖西伯利亚仓鼠的疾病行为。对调节疾病行为表现的生理信号的理解将增强我们对环境条件如何影响动物对感染的反应方式的了解。这项研究的结果将有助于当前的倡议，以理解疾病的易感性，这是病原体患病率（即疾病生态学）和宿主免疫功能（即生态免疫学）的功能。此外，这项工作还提供了机会，可以使多样化的本科生参与研究培训，并在完成这些项目后继续这样做。DATA将在研究数据综合体（RDC），http://pervasive.iu.iu.edu/hps上提供。 /rdc