[Animals] Stress is not unique to humans; that's how wild animals manage

[#Wittels-]

We are not the only animals that suffer from anxiety. From lizards to song sparrows, adverse events can have lasting effects on species.

The sound of airplanes can be traumatic to the long-tailed lizard, which has a small range in southeastern Colorado.

Many of us react to stressful situations by drinking too much coffee, sleeping too much (or not enough), or overeating (to meet the deadline for this story, for example, I ate yogurt, four cookies, and a ton of grapes).

It turns out that various wild animals also experience physical reactions to stress. The main challenges facing wild animals are whether they will find enough food or discover themselves in another's food. But sometimes, it is the people who cause the traumas.

For example, a new study shows that the rare Colorado lizard comes in response to noise. Part of their habitat includes the military base of Fort Carson (United States), where low-flying planes produce noises louder than those they naturally experience.

After observing some of the wild reptiles and taking blood samples, the scientists found that during flybys, the lizards released more cortisol, the stress hormone, moved less and ate more. According to the authors, it will probably compensate for the energy lost during stress.

Here are other ways animals react to difficult situations.

 

trouble sleeping
Sleep is key for all mammals, and not getting enough sleep can be detrimental.

"Lack of sleep, a form of stress, can cause increased food intake in both humans and some non-human animals," says Barrett Klein, an entom at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse who also studies the biology of sleep. .

In laboratory studies, fruit flies undergoing social isolation slept less during and ate more, and sleep-deprived mice ate more during their recovery. Some butterflies that do not get enough rest eat poorly and lay their eggs on the wrong plants.

If some species of bees don't get enough sleep, they'll perform their wiggle dances, the beekeeping equivalent of GPS, "with a less precise direction component," Klein says by email, giving his viewers less useful information about where to find food.

pass on the trauma
Scott Heppell, a fish ecologist at Oregon State University, is hesitant to say that other animals will react to stress like we do.

"That's too anthropomorphic for me," Heppell says by email. "But I could say that other animals have somewhat analogous responses," for example, when stressful events experienced by parents "may affect the performance of their offspring." In humans, that concept is called generational trauma.

Small freshwater fish called sticklebacks seem to transmit the trauma to their young, although the effects are different between males and females.

In research published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, scientists showed that sons of stickleback fathers who had been exposed to predators were at greater risk, but daughters were not affected by trauma. Mothers exposed to predators had anxious pups of both sexes, but why is still unknown.

 

The danger of predators
The mere presence of predators can make animals nervous. For example, the song sparrow, the object of study by Liana Zanette, a po[CENSORED]tion ecologist at the Western University of Ontario (Canada).

In a 2022 study, Zanette trained wild song sparrows in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, British Columbia, where they have few predators. During the survey, put up barriers to make sure nothing happens to the birds.

For 18 weeks, Zanette's team played intermittent recordings in which half the birds in the study listened to friendly animals, such as Canada geese. no harm, only birds.

The other half of the birds listened to recordings of ravens and crows, which eat the eggs and chicks of sparrows.

The results showed that fear of ghost predators caused these birds to have 53% fewer offspring than those that did not listen to the fear soundtrack.

"The parents get very nervous when they think predators are around," Zanette explains, so instead of spending their time incubating the eggs or feeding the chicks, they run away from the nest.

All of this may sound wrong, but evolutionarily the response of birds is correct. Surviving and having fewer pups is better than dying and having none, Zanette says.

That predator-induced fear can also cause lasting changes similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, he says. In a 2019 study, Zanette found that blackcap chickadees exposed to predators had elevated brain activity and heightened sensitivity to danger for at least seven days afterward.

 

Link: https://www.nationalgeographic.es/animales/2023/04/estres-animales-salvajes-solucion