Control of Seasonal Breeding in Diverse Habitats

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

Most vertebrates live more than one year and are subjected to varying degrees of seasonal changes in diverse habitats. Animals must also cope with unpredictable events that include stresses from severe weather events, predators and recently, human disturbance, pollution, global climate change etc. Changes in morphology, physiology and behavior that underlie coping mechanisms for predictable and unpredictable environmental changes are regulated by neuroendocrine and endocrine secretions that in turn are triggered by environmental signals. Except for effects of photoperiod, relatively little is known about how environmental signals are perceived and transduced into neuroendocrine secretions. This project is to determine how animals in their natural habitat perceive environmental cues and how this information is processed resulting in responses. The work will involve both field and laboratory approaches that also provide an ideal training opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students. Such an approach is timely given the impact of global change and how organisms in general may be able to cope. Fieldwork will address the degree of seasonality, behavioral modulation and responses to acute stresses in populations of songbirds at comparable latitudes and altitudes in North and South America. Laboratory studies will focus on mechanisms at cell and molecular levels. What environmental cues are important, how are they perceived and transduced into hormone secretions, and how do those hormones then act are the focus of this project. In addition, the PI has developed an environmental endocrinology course for undergraduate and graduate students (including international courses)and leads a NSF research coordination network.