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

Ferguson Stephen M, Ashland OH

Investigators

Abstract

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.