When mother squirrels are stressed, the growth rate of the squirrel rises and dies soon

ByShandi-lee

In order to leave a better gene, the mother does everything for the growth of the child. This is not limited to human beings, animals are no exception. In the case of American acaris, its motherhood is that it explodes when you feel stressScienceIt was announced in the magazine.

Stressed out moms mean faster growing babies - if you're a squirrel | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/stressed-out-moms-mean-faster-growing-babiesif-youre-a-squirrel/


This study was conducted in CanadaYukon TerritoryA part of what continues to target Akaris for 22 years.SpruceConifers are spread all at a time every several years, but at that time the number of squirrel populations explodes. According to research in the last few years, I found that squirrels with fast growing speed compared with squirrel growing squirrels can live an advantageous life when the number of squirrel populations is extremely large. So, what is the difference between a fast growing squirrel and a slow squirrel?

Researchers focused on the mother squirrel that had a big influence on the squirrel and examined how mother squirrels change due to an increase in the number of individuals. That way, spreading the squirrels of the squirrels with a loudspeaker, it makes the wild squirrels make it seem that the number of individuals has increased. Then, in the breeding season, we monitored the environment of raising children by weighing the timing immediately after birth and the weight of the child squirrels when we celebrated 25th birthday.

As a result, the squirrel born after using the loudspeaker was found to grow faster than the other individuals. In other words, the mother squirrel who heard the songs of other squirrels has raised the growth speed of the child in any way.

ByWader

Acceleration of growth rate is brought about in many cases and increased food, but growth rate may increase even though food is not enough. This case is exactly that, with the explosive increase in the number of individuals triggered, the phenomenon of acceleration of the growth rate is occurring.

Researchers believe that the key to this phenomenon isGlucocorticoidI noticed that it is in the mother squirrel stress hormone. Experiments other than experiments on growth rate of squirrels revealed that there is a relationship between population density and glucocorticoid level. In other words, when in an overcrowded environment, the mother squirrel during pregnancy is more stressful.

Researchers artificially given cortisol to pregnant mother squirrels to ascertain that "the mother's stress level has an influence on the growth environment of the squirrels", the born child squirrel gives cortisol It was 41% more rapid than the individual born from the mother squirrel who did not have it.

In general, it is said that stress is a bad thing, and in the case of humans, advice is given to pregnant mothers "to avoid stressful environments" in many cases, Stress is important as a help for a child to walk a better way. For many creatures, stress plays a vital role in searching for new territories and escaping from natural enemies. However, there has been no evidence that the stress that mothers have ever had benefit for their descendants.

At this time, it was not seen that the mother squirrel who had a fast growing child squirre was compensated, but one of the child squirrels is higher than the slowly growing squirrel as a result of the advantage of fast growth rate I found that the lifetime is short.

By(Alex)

The reasons why glucocorticoids act on child squirrels in the mother's womb and why fast-growing squirrels become short-lived is not clear yet, but this research has been considered so far It suggests that there may be a complicated relationship between stress and health more than it was.