@phdthesis{Fragueira2019,
  author    = {Rita Fragueira},
  title     = {Coping with the heat: Effects of simulated heatwaves on behavious, maintenance and reproduction in the polymorphic Gouldian finch.},
  journal    = {Bew{\"a}ltigung einer Hitzewelle: Auswirkungen simulierter Hitzewellen auf das Verhalten, die Physiologie und die Reproduktion bei dem polymorphischen Gouldamadine.},
  url       = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:9-opus-27672},
  pages     = {128},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {For decades, evolutionary biologists have sought to understand the evolution of individual behaviour, physiology and ecology allowing organisms to cope to environmental change. One of the main challenges of current climate change is the unprecedent rate of temperature increase, as well as the increased occurence of extreme heat events. Interindividual response variability opens a whole new area of opportunities to understand how individual phenotypic traits are linked to individual response differences. In colour polymorphic species, colour honestly reflects an individual’s life-history strategy, and each morph may, therefore, represent an alternative life-history strategy. As such, colour polymorphic species, such as the Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae), may be good models to assess how different strategies between morphs are linked to their espective responses to environmental variations. However, polymorphic species have mainly been disregarded for that purpose. In this context, the main aim of this thesis was to understand how the two morphs of the Gouldian finch respond through phenotypic plasticity to simulated heatwaves reaching thermocritical temperatures, and whether such differential responses may help to identify a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’ morph in the light of climate change. To address these issues, we used an integrative approach including measurements of behavioural (Study 1), physiological (Study 2), and reproductive (Study 3) parameters. The novelty of our approach was to assess the immediate behavioural and physiological response variation of individuals of the two morphs longitudinally across different thermal conditions, as well as the postponed effects of this thermocritical heatwave exposure on their reproductive performance. In this study, although the behavioural responses generally did not differ between morphs or according to temperature intensity, the physiological and reproductive parameters differed in response to morph and temperature intensity. Blackheaded females, in particular, seem highly sensitive to thermocritical heatwaves, as they exhibited decreased body mass and increased oxidative damage during the thermocritical heatwaves, and advanced breeding initiation after these conditions, whereas these variables remained mostly unaffected in black-headed males and red-headed individuals. However, despite some response differences between morphs, both invested similarly in reproduction following intense heatwaves, and the offspring of both morphs were similarly affected. Based on these results, no morph therefore seems to appear more disadvantaged than the other following an intense heatwave, and red- and black-headed Gouldian finches may both be considered as climate stress ‘losers’.},
  language  = {en}
}