Stress and survival in vertebrates: transgenerational effects of stress, environmental context, and why it matters
16 May 2022 - Dr Kirsty MacLeod, Bangor University, United Kingdom | 16h00 | Hybrid seminar
CASUAL SEMINAR IN BIODIVERSITY AND EVOLUTION
Ecological stressors such as predation can shape ecosystems, driving prey population and community dynamics through indirect, non-consumptive effects that may cascade across generations through parental effects. I show that predation risk in a wild mammal (the snowshoe hare) can have lethal inter-generational effects. I explore potential hormonal mechanisms for such effects using a different system, the eastern fence lizard, and demonstrate that short term elevations of glucocorticoid hormones at the level of a predator encounter can induce similar effects on adult survival and reproductive success. I will also discuss the importance of considering the ecological context in which maternal effects occur for determining their evolutionary importance across species and taxa.
Kirsty MacLeod is a behavioural ecologist and lecturer at Bangor University in the UK, with interests in maternal effects, environmental stressors, and social systems - and most of all how those interact. She has done postdoctoral research at Cambridge and Penn State, and was a Marie Curie Fellow at Lund University.
[Host: Rita Covas, Animal Sociality - SOCIALITY]