Adjustments to energy provisioning and oxidative balance in response to temperature in a wild passerine

Abstract

Climate change and urbanization are associated with elevated ambient temperature (T_a). This increase may negatively impact organisms by creating conditions that are outside their resilience limits, but the physiological mechanisms that limit phenotypic plasticity in response to T_a variation remain poorly understood. We investigated these mechanisms in captive House Finches, Haemorhous mexicanus, a common native resident of rural and urban environments. We exposed finches to temperatures either slightly below the species' lower critical temperature (constant 20 °C; COOL group) or close to its upper critical temperature (daily min. 27 °C, daily max. 35 °C; WARM group) for two weeks. Birds in the COOL group ate more than birds in the WARM group, which is consistent with the prediction that cool T_a exposure increased the metabolic rate. However, finches of the two groups did not differ with regard to their body masses, fat reserves, or blood concentrations of ketone bodies, uric acid, and erythrocytic peroxidized lipids. Thus, exposure to the two experimental treatments did not result in major metabolic differences between groups. Acute stress caused by handling and restraint for 30 min decreased plasma uric acid, which may have been associated with its utilization as a free radical scavenger and so may have decreased stress-associated oxidative damage. Acute stress also increased plasma ketone bodies, suggesting increased lipid oxidation. These stress-related metabolic changes did not differ in the COOL and WARM groups, indicating within the range of T_a to which birds were exposed that temperature did not affect the birds' physiological sensitivity to acute stress.