Meeting Abstract

30.4  Sunday, Jan. 5 09:30  Mechanistic links between evironmental variability and life-history strategies KITAYSKY, AS*; SCHULTNER, J; WELCKER, J; YOUNG, R; Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks; Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology, Trondheim; Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromsø; Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks askitaysky@alaska.edu

Understanding the causal factors and proximate physiological mechanisms leading to variation in animal life-history strategies is of central importance to our understanding of the effects of climate change on wild animal populations. This study examines effects of a common environmental stress-or, i.e. nutritional stress, on patterns of reproduction and aging of a long-lived organism, the black-legged kittiwake, that exhibits opposing life history strategies between Pacific and Atlantic Ocean populations. Within the framework of the metabolic theory of aging and the rate-of-living hypothesis, kittiwakes have been shown to be “faster-lived” in the Atlantic than the Pacific. We will discuss observational and experimental evidence for the functional relationships among stress endocrinology, metabolism, survival and telomere dynamics of a long-lived organism living under differing environmental conditions.