The impact of nutrition and metabolism on bird fitness across the urban/rural landscape

Urbanisation has vastly changed the landscape across the globe, with biodiversity loss as a consequence.

Several bird species have, however, colonized this novel environment and need to cope with all the urban-associated challenges, such as changes in food quality/quantity. Yet, birds have an additional challenge of having a high metabolic demand. Hence, resource acquisition has often been highlighted as a main cause for their lower fitness in urban environments.

However, acquisition of specific nutrients, may be equally important but this is much less explored.

Additionally, how early life nutrition and environmental stress may shape the metabolic phenotype (the exposome) via epigenetic programming is an outstanding question that remains unresolved.

The aims of the proposed project are to understand how the urban environment affects nutrition and the exposome of wild great tits (Parus major), and how this may shape fitness-related life-history traits.

Additionally, experiments will be performed to test if the exposome is context-dependent (plastic in response to habitat and/or diet) or context-independent (stable within an individual across contexts).

Blood samples will be used to measure metabolomics (the exposome), nutrients (e.g., ω3 fatty acids and proteins), telomere length (as a proxy for longevity) and DNA-methylation.

To understand these questions is of utmost importance given the expansion of urban areas and the continuing negative impact on wildlife.