Future directions in urban endocrinology - The effects of endocrine plasticity on urban tolerance.

Autor: Bonier F; Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada. Electronic address: bonierf@queensu.ca.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Molecular and cellular endocrinology [Mol Cell Endocrinol] 2023 Apr 05; Vol. 565, pp. 111886. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Feb 11.
DOI: 10.1016/j.mce.2023.111886
Abstrakt: After twenty years of studies of endocrine traits in animals living in cities, the field of urban endocrinology has built a robust literature including numerous studies looking for signatures of the effects of urban living, usually in mean circulating hormone concentrations. The findings of this past research have primarily demonstrated the absence of any generalizable endocrine responses to city life. In this opinion paper, I suggest that a strong route forward would include investigations of the role of variation in endocrine plasticity in determining the degree to which organisms tolerate urban challenges (i.e., urban tolerance). Achieving this research aim will require creative experimental and comparative studies, consideration of alternative study systems, and teasing apart of sources of variation in plastic phenotypes (plasticity, sorting, and contemporary evolution). Insight into the role of endocrine plasticity in influencing urban tolerance could help us better understand and predict impacts of expanding urbanization on biodiversity across the globe.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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