Interrelationship of Day Length and Temperature on the Control of Gonadal Development, Body Mass, and Fat Score in White-Crowned Sparrows,Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii

Wingfield, John C.; Hahn, Thomas P.; Wada, Mitsuru; Astheimer, Lee B.; Schoech, Stephan J.

doi:10.1006/gcen.1996.0027

Cited by 107 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Z. l. gambelli breed in Alaska with a short but highly predictable breeding season; Z. l. oriantha and Z. l. pugetensis breed in the temperate latitudes with longer breeding seasons of more variable onset and offset. Supporting Wingfield et al's (1992) view, ambient temperature modifies photoperiodic responses of prolactin and gonadal development in Z. l. oriantha and Z. l. pugetensis but not in Z. l. gambelli (Wingfield et al 1996(Wingfield et al , 1997(Wingfield et al , 2003Maney et al 1999).…”

Section: (C) Timers Versus Clocksmentioning

confidence: 64%

Tracking the seasons: the internal calendars of vertebrates

Paul

Zucker

Schwartz

2007

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

175

152

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Animals have evolved many season-specific behavioural and physiological adaptations that allow them to both cope with and exploit the cyclic annual environment. Two classes of endogenous annual timekeeping mechanisms enable animals to track, anticipate and prepare for the seasons: a timer that measures an interval of several months and a clock that oscillates with a period of approximately a year. Here, we discuss the basic properties and biological substrates of these timekeeping mechanisms, as well as their reliance on, and encoding of environmental cues to accurately time seasonal events. While the separate classification of interval timers and circannual clocks has elucidated important differences in their underlying properties, comparative physiological investigations, especially those regarding seasonal prolactin secretions, hint at the possibility of common substrates.Keywords: seasonality; photoperiodism; circannual; interval timers While the Earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.Genesis 8: 22, King James Version (1611) As the Earth makes its yearly orbit around the Sun, the planet's 23.58 axial tilt leads to the cyclical environmental changes that we call the seasons. Recurrent challenges to the survival of organisms and their offspring arise with the dawning of each new season, and animals have evolved seasonally induced changes in phenotype that adapt them to these predictable events. For example, in many temperate environments, winter is generally characterized by severe decreases in ambient temperature and food availability, leading to increased energetic demands at a time when resources are diminished. Because energy requirements of female mammals typically increase markedly during lactation (Bronson 1989) and newly weaned offspring are particularly vulnerable to environmental perturbations (Hill 1992), raising offspring during this time of year is often futile. Thus, many temperate species have evolved winter-specific behaviours and physiology to conserve energy (e.g. hibernation, a more insulative pelage, huddling) or provide for escape (e.g. migration). Many species also increase the chances of offspring survival by timing their mating behaviours so that parturition occurs during energetically favourable times of year.

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Section: (C) Timers Versus Clocksmentioning

confidence: 64%

Tracking the seasons: the internal calendars of vertebrates

Paul

Zucker

Schwartz

2007

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

175

152

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“…However, because the annual change in daylength is invariable from year to year, any adjustments in onset of nesting must be triggered by non-photic cues such as temperature (Wingfield and Kenagy 1991;Wingfield et al 1992;Wingfield and Farner 1993). Effects of temperature on photoperiodically-induced gonadal growth provide some support for this hypothesis because higher ambient temperatures speed up photoperiodicallyinduced gonadal growth and may even trigger onset of nesting in some species (see Wingfield and Kenagy 1991;Wingfield et al 1996Wingfield et al , 2003Dawson 2005: Silverin et al 2008. Moreover, lower temperatures slowed down gonadal growth but also prolonged the period with mature gonads and delayed termination of the breeding season, the opposite of what we would have predicted.…”

Section: Multiple Brooding In An Arctic Songbirdmentioning

confidence: 69%

Organism–environment interactions in a changing world: a mechanistic approach

et al. 2011

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Understanding the interactions of an organism and its environment is essential for us to integrate ultimate and proximate causation on a global scale. Organismenvironment interaction includes all organisms including animals, plants, and non-eukaryotes, etc. because all of them are responsive to environmental change including those that are human-induced. A mechanistic approach is important for us to understand why some organisms can cope with change and others cannot. Here, we present three examples of environments (''the three poles'') that are changing rapidly and how avian species typical of these ecosystems are responding. These examples include apparently adaptive responses to change in climate (i.e. the predictable environment) in one species in which a lengthened breeding season now allows multiple breeding attempts. Why other species are unable to respond in a similar way remains unclear. A second example describes how changing weather (i.e. the unpredictable) may have disastrous results for breeding success in a species adapted to an extreme cold environment. Implications for climate change in which weather extremes will become more common again suggest a mechanistic approach will be important to understand how organisms may respond. The third example outlines a scenario in which multiple human-induced rapid changes (a combination of predictable and unpredictable such as development, habitat change, introduction of invasive species and climate change) may influence indigenous species in different ways. Organism-environment interaction is a fundamental concept that may unify ultimate and proximate causation and point the way for future investigations striving to understand coping mechanisms in a world where both predictable and unpredictable components of the environment are changing.

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“…The urban microclimate is generally warmer than that of adjacent forest habitats (Klausnitzer 1989;Sukopp 1998;Partecke et al 2005). Experimental studies in which photosensitive birds were exposed to the same long day lengths but different ambient temperatures provided some evidence for a direct advancing effect of higher temperatures on the reproductive system (Silverin & Viebke 1994;Wingfield et al 1996Wingfield et al , 1997Wingfield et al , 2003. Furthermore, urban birds consume extra anthropogenic food offered at feeders during winter and early spring, and they also take advantage of all kinds of human waste.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in the timing of reproduction between urban and forest European blackbirds (Turdus merula): result of phenotypic flexibility or genetic differences?

Partecke

Hof

Gwinner

2004

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

156

129

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Species which have settled in urban environments are exposed to different conditions from their wild conspecifics. A previous comparative study of an urban and a forest-living European blackbird population had revealed a three weeks earlier onset of gonadal growth in urban individuals. These physiological adjustments are either the result of genetic differences that have evolved during the urbanization process, or of phenotypic flexibility resulting from the bird's exposure to the different environmental conditions of town or forest. To identify which of these two mechanisms causes the differences in reproductive timing, hand-reared birds originating from the urban and the forest populations were kept in identical conditions. The substantial differences in the timing of reproduction between urban and forest birds known from the field did not persist under laboratory conditions, indicating that temporal differences in reproductive timing between these two populations are mainly a result of phenotypic flexibility. Nevertheless, urban males initiated plasma luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion and testicular development earlier than forest males in their first reproductive season. Moreover, plasma LH concentration and follicle size declined earlier in urban females than in forest females, suggesting that genetic differences are also involved and might contribute to the variations in the timing of reproduction in the wild.

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Interrelationship of Day Length and Temperature on the Control of Gonadal Development, Body Mass, and Fat Score in White-Crowned Sparrows,Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii

Cited by 107 publications

References 27 publications

Tracking the seasons: the internal calendars of vertebrates

Tracking the seasons: the internal calendars of vertebrates

Organism–environment interactions in a changing world: a mechanistic approach

Differences in the timing of reproduction between urban and forest European blackbirds (Turdus merula): result of phenotypic flexibility or genetic differences?

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