Abstract
Individuals colonizing new areas at expanding ranges encounter numerous and unpredictable stressors. Exposure to unfamiliar environments suggests that colonists would differ in stress levels from residents living in familiar conditions. Few empirical studies tested this hypothesis and produced mixed results, and the role of stress regulation in colonization remains unclear. Studies relating stress levels to colonization mainly use a geographical analysis comparing established colonist populations with source populations. We used faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGMs) to assess both spatial and temporal dynamics of stress levels in an expanding population of midday gerbils (Meriones meridianus). We demonstrated that adult males and females had higher FGM levels in newly emerged colonies, compared with the source population, but differed in the pattern of FGM dynamics post-foundation. In males, FGM levels sharply decreased in the second year after colony establishment. In females, FGM levels did not change with time and remained high despite the decreasing environmental unpredictability, exhibiting among-individual variation. Increased stress levels of colonist males dam** with time post-colonization suggest they are flexible in responding to immediate changes in environmental uncertainty. On the contrary, high and stable over generations stress levels uncoupled from the changes in the environmental uncertainty in female colonists imply that they carry a relatively constant phenotype associated with the reactive co** strategy favouring colonization. We link sex differences in consistency and plasticity in stress regulation during colonization to the sex-specific life-history strategies.
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Data availability
The dataset generated and analysed during the current study is available online as Online Resource 2 (ESM_2.csv) in Supplementary Information.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to T. Demidova, O. Batova, N.A. Vasilieva and A.D. Poyarkov for valuable comments on the study design and comprehensive discussions. We thank N. Ovchinnikova, D. Pozhariskii, Y. Chabovskaya, D.B. Vasiliev, V. Shved, Y. Vasilieva, A. Raspopova, A. Mokrousov, T. Demidova, Y. Bazykin, V. Kuznetsov, A.B. Vasilieva, V. Trunov, A. Kalinin, V. Brukhno, A. Bogatchuk for assistance in field studies and P. Kluchnikova for assistance in performing EIA.
Funding
This research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant # 22-14-00223 to A.V.T., https://rscf.ru/project/22-14-00223/).
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AVT conceived and supervised the study, all authors collected the data, ENS and LES performed enzyme immunoassay, ISK and AVT analysed the data, ENS and AVT wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript, read the final text and approved it.
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All applicable international and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. All procedures conform to the ASAB/ABS Guidelines for the Treatment of Animals in Behavioural Research and Teaching (Buchanan et al. 2012). The research protocols for this study were approved by the Animal Ethics Commission of Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution (protocols ## 19-2019 and 58-2022).
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Surkova, E.N., Savinetskaya, L.E., Khropov, I.S. et al. Flexible males, reactive females: faecal glucocorticoid metabolites indicate increased stress in the colonist population, dam** with time in males but not in females. J Comp Physiol B (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-024-01564-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-024-01564-2