Mediation of optimal reproductive decisions by maternal stress

母亲压力对最佳生殖决策的调节

• 批准号: RGPIN-2015-06724
• 负责人: Love, Oliver
• 金额: $ 3.57万
• 依托单位: University of Windsor
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=689782
• 关键词: Mediation; optimal; reproductive; decisions; maternal

Population and ecosystem health are driven by the capacity of individuals to maximize their fitness under continuously changing environmental conditions. Since physiological function directly mediates the relationship of the organism to its environment, physiological traits are useful to study as regulators of the life-history decisions and trade-offs that shape variation in fitness. However, despite much theoretical work predicting expected relationships between physiology and ecological or environmental processes, many physiological traits fail to show consistent individual-level variation, cannot be universally applied across diverse taxa, or are hard to experimentally manipulate in wild systems. Steroid hormones are now recognized to be critically involved in the adaptation and evolution of complex traits. Baseline levels of `stress' hormones are fantastic candidates for mediating investment decisions both within and among individuals since they regulate daily and seasonal energetic balance in vertebrates. Although recent work has focused on trying to link stress hormones directly to fitness, these studies often find equivocal results. Very few studies are designed to interpret more complex, but likely more biologically relevant, linkages between baseline stress hormones and fitness. The research program and associated projects outlined in this application are designed to answer some of these fundamental, and yet currently missing, questions. I am specifically going to test whether baseline stress hormones: i) integrate individual and environmental variability, ii) prepare individuals for the performance demands of energetically expensive life-history stages, iii) mediate adaptive investment decisions, and therefore fitness, and iv) modulate their trade-off and fitness effects via ecological and life-history level contexts. This type of mechanistic information is not only very important for basic exploratory scientific studies, but it is increasingly key and needed in applied research to increase the predictive power of how we expect individuals and populations breeding in sensitive ecosystems like the Arctic to fair and respond as they face increasingly numbers of human-induced stressors.**

人口和生态系统健康是由个体在不断变化的环境条件下最大化其健康的能力驱动的。由于生理功能直接调节生物体与其环境的关系，因此生理特征对于研究作为影响健康变化的生活史决策和权衡的调节者是有用的。然而，尽管有很多理论工作预测了生理学与生态或环境过程之间的预期关系，但许多生理特征未能表现出一致的个体水平变异，不能普遍应用于不同的分类群，或者难以在野生系统中进行实验操作。现在人们认识到类固醇激素在复杂性状的适应和进化中发挥着重要作用。 “压力”激素的基线水平是调节个体内部和个体之间投资决策的绝佳候选者，因为它们调节脊椎动物的日常和季节性能量平衡。尽管最近的工作重点是试图将压力荷尔蒙与健康直接联系起来，但这些研究经常发现模棱两可的结果。很少有研究旨在解释基线压力激素与健康之间更复杂但可能更具生物学相关性的联系。本申请中概述的研究计划和相关项目旨在回答其中一些基本但目前缺失的问题。我特别要测试基线压力荷尔蒙是否：i）整合个人和环境的可变性，ii）为个人满足精力充沛的生命史阶段的绩效要求做好准备，iii）调解适应性投资决策，从而适应健康，iv）调节他们通过生态和生活史水平背景进行权衡和适应效应。这种类型的机制信息不仅对于基础探索性科学研究非常重要，而且在应用研究中也越来越关键和需要，以提高我们期望个体和种群在北极等敏感生态系统中繁殖如何公平和做出反应的预测能力。他们面临着越来越多的人为压力。**