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Developmental stress can uncouple relationships between physiology and behaviour

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journal contribution
posted on 2014-12-01, 00:00 authored by Vincent Careau, William Buttemer, Kate BuchananKate Buchanan
Phenotypic correlations (rP) have frequently been observed between physiological and behavioural traits, and the nature of these associations has been shown to be modulated by a range of environmental stressors. Studies to date have examined the effects of acute stressors on physiology-behaviour interrelations, but the potential for permanent changes induced by exposure to stress during development remains unexplored. We exposed female zebra finches to dietary restriction during the nestling stage and tested how this affected rP among a variety of physiological traits (haematocrit, stress-induced corticosterone level and basal metabolic rate (BMR)) and behavioural traits (activity and feeding rates in novel and familiar environments). Developmental stress completely uncoupled the relationship between activity in a novel environment and two physiological traits: haematocrit and BMR. This suggests that nutritionally based developmental stress has provoked changes in the energy budget that alleviate the trade-off between maintenance (BMR) and locomotor activities.

History

Journal

Biology letters

Volume

10

Issue

12

Article number

20140834

Pagination

1 - 4

Publisher

The Royal Society Publishing

Location

London, Eng.

eISSN

1744-957X

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article; C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2014, The Royal Society Publishing