Research by the Oregon State University College of Science shows that when a bird learns that food supplies might be short, it changes its behavior and physiology.
The findings of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"This is an entirely new form of physiological plasticity in birds and builds on prior work showing that social cues during stress can actually change how the brain processes stressors."
The mechanisms that wild animals use as they cope with unpredictable and extreme events in their environment are examined by an ecophysiologist. A better understanding of what limits an animal's fitness under difficult conditions is what her research is about.
She said that animals have a wide range of strategies for dealing with challenging environments. Behavioral changes can sometimes be accompanied by ysiological adjustments in metabolism, but they can take time to execute. Many animals are challenged by unpredictable environmental conditions.
A red crossbill with a food-restricted neighbor will produce higher than usual levels of the stress hormone corticosterone and have brain activity changes in order to respond more strongly to the challenge.
The red crossbill is a bird that migrates based on food availability and incorporates other birds' calls into its decision-making on how to respond to food deprivation.
The crossbill is found in Europe and North America. The upper and lower beak tips cross and help it pull seeds from conifer cones.
The dependence of crossbills on conifer seeds makes them an interesting study system. In regards to how long a seed crop might support birds, it's a bit of a mystery. We use crossbills as a study system to try to understand what strategies birds might have available when food suddenly declines, because crossbills may have to deal with this more often than other species.
Some birds received three days of social information from food-deprived birds prior to their own food limitations, while other birds received three days of social information from food-deprived birds at the same time.
The social parallel focal group is referred to as the former collection of birds.
If the social information was indicative of the decline in food resources, the birds would do better at maintaining body mass. The study shows that advance warning about declining food can lead to better outcomes during times of scarcity.
More information: J. M. Cornelius, Advance social information allows red crossbills ( Loxia curvirostra ) to better conserve body mass and intestinal mass during food stress, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0516 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
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