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Neophobia, but not perch hopping, is sensitive to long‐term chronic stress intensity.

Authors :
Beattie, Ursula K.
Mikolajczak, Lily
Fefferman, Nina
Romero, L. Michael
Source :
Journal of Experimental Zoology: Part A Ecological & Integrative Physiology; Dec2023, Vol. 339 Issue 10, p1036-1043, 8p
Publication Year :
2023

Abstract

To further elucidate the role that wear‐and‐tear plays in the transition from acute to chronic stress, we manipulated the intensity and duration of applied chronic stress to determine if behavior would respond proportionately. We brought wild house sparrows into captivity and subjected them to high‐stress, medium‐stress, low‐stress, or captivity‐only. We varied the number of stressors per day and the duration of stress periods to vary wear‐and‐tear, and thus the potential to exhibit chronic stress symptoms. The behaviors we assessed were neophobia (the fear of the new; assessed via food approach latency) and perch hopping (activity). We predicted that our birds would show proportionate decreases in neophobia and activity throughout a long‐term chronic stress paradigm. Our results indicate that neophobia is sensitive to the intensity of chronic stress, however, the birds became more neophobic, which was the opposite of what we expected. Conversely, perch hopping did not differ across treatment groups and is thus not sensitive to the intensity of chronic stress. Together, these data show that different behavioral measurements are impacted differently by chronic stress. Research highlights: We subjected house sparrows to different intensities of long‐term chronic stress and quantified behaviors. Neophobia differed across stress intensity groups but perch hopping did not, indicating that all behaviors do not respond to stress equally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
24715638
Volume :
339
Issue :
10
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Journal of Experimental Zoology: Part A Ecological & Integrative Physiology
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
173440282
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.2752