Tag : Avian

Washington: According to a recent on how heat impacts the behaviour and physiology of Zebra finches revealed that heat altered the activity of hundreds of genes in the testis, but fewer in the brain, also suggesting that the brain may be less responsive to extreme temperatures. The research helps to provide some insights into birds and their ability to handle the threat of climate change. "Most of what we know about the behavioural and physiological effects of heat comes from aquatic organisms or terrestrial cold-blooded animals, but heat waves could be a real problem for terrestrial birds and mammals too, especially if heat interferes with critical components of their reproductive behaviour and physiology," said Sara Lipshutz, assistant professor at Loyola University Chicago, former graduate student at UT, and first author on the publication. "We wanted to understand how that happens as a first step towards understanding how to manage these problems. "Heat waves can be lethal for warm-blooded animals, but behavioural and physiological effects are missing from recent high-profile studies on climate change. The researchers wanted to know about sub-lethal effects of heat that do not kill animals but still might impact their ability to adapt and thrive as the climate changes. Lipshutz and colleagues exposed zebra finches to a four-hour heat challenge, similar to what wild birds might experience during the afternoon heat on a summer day. Zebra finches were selected for the study because these songbirds experience extreme temperature fluctuations in their native Australia. The team measured heat effects on thermoregulatory behavior and looked specifically at how heat changed gene activity in tissues that are critical to reproduction -- t ...