Epigenetic / en A harried life: 91吃瓜 researchers study stress in snowshoe hares, apply it to humans /news/harried-life-u-t-researchers-study-stress-snowshoe-hares-apply-it-humans <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">A harried life: 91吃瓜 researchers study stress in snowshoe hares, apply it to humans</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-05-02T12:31:33-04:00" title="Tuesday, May 2, 2017 - 12:31" class="datetime">Tue, 05/02/2017 - 12:31</time> </span> <div class="field field--name-field-youtube field--type-youtube field--label-hidden field__item"><figure class="youtube-container"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9rWrG_kZJI8?wmode=opaque" width="450" height="315" id="youtube-field-player" class="youtube-field-player" title="Embedded video for A harried life: 91吃瓜 researchers study stress in snowshoe hares, apply it to humans" aria-label="Embedded video for A harried life: 91吃瓜 researchers study stress in snowshoe hares, apply it to humans: https://www.youtube.com/embed/9rWrG_kZJI8?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/don-campbell" hreflang="en">Don Campbell</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Don Campbell</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/stress" hreflang="en">Stress</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/yukon" hreflang="en">Yukon</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-scarborough" hreflang="en">91吃瓜 Scarborough</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/arctic" hreflang="en">Arctic</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/biology" hreflang="en">Biology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/graduate-students" hreflang="en">Graduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/epigenetic" hreflang="en">Epigenetic</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Pretty much everything in the boreal forest is trying to eat the&nbsp;snowshoe hare.</p> <p>It's preyed upon by&nbsp;Canadian lynx, foxes, coyotes and&nbsp;various birds. Red squirrels and Arctic ground squirrels even kill its babies.&nbsp;</p> <p>It鈥檚 no wonder that, with grim odds of survival, the snowshoe hare experiences&nbsp;stress. 91吃瓜 Scarborough researchers are looking at the role of stress in snowshoe hares and what traits baby hares inherit&nbsp;from their stressed-out moms.</p> <p>They're looking at whether stress triggers programming effects or&nbsp;changes in gene function for&nbsp;hare offspring, and they're&nbsp;hoping the hares may provide some answers for stressed-out humans and their babies. &nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淭he idea is that if this effect happens in snowshoe hares, it may also be at work in other organisms,鈥�&nbsp;says&nbsp;<strong>Rudy Boonstra</strong>, a professor of biology at 91吃瓜 Scarborough.&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__4470 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" src="/sites/default/files/Snowshoe%20hare2_0.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px; margin: 10px;" typeof="foaf:Image"><br> <em>Researchers work out of the Kluane Lake Research Base in Yukon without electricity and&nbsp;running water while they study snowshoe hares</em></p> <p>Boonstra has been doing field research in Canada鈥檚 north for more than 40 years and helped co-author a comprehensive book on the boreal forest ecosystem. In the early 1980s, he started thinking about the role stress plays in natural environments, particularly in how ecosystems are organized.&nbsp;</p> <p>Snowshoe hares followed a somewhat predictable 10-year population cycle so they made good candidates to study the indirect effects of stress, Boonstra&nbsp;says.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淭he evidence up until that point was that predators were calling the shots,鈥� he&nbsp;says. 鈥淥nce the hare population was abundant, predators were critical in driving down their numbers.鈥�&nbsp;</p> <p>During the decline phase of the population cycle, which lasts about two to three years, pretty much every snowshoe hare dies at the 鈥渢ooth or talon鈥� of a predator, says Boonstra. So the question became whether the hares are smart enough to know that a predator was likely to kill them.&nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淚f you look at the stress levels they鈥檙e experiencing, clearly, they do,鈥� he says. &nbsp;</p> <p>Not only do hares show signs of stress in their blood and energy levels, that stress also influences how they reproduce. Past research in Boonstra鈥檚 lab has found that stress experienced by mothers can be inherited by their offspring. What鈥檚 more, during periods of very high predation, which happens at the peak of the hare population cycle, the number of litters per summer begins to decline. &nbsp;</p> <p>鈥淵ou would think they would be breeding like mad since they鈥檙e being killed like mad, but in fact it鈥檚 the opposite,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he fear reduces reproduction.鈥�</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__4471 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" src="/sites/default/files/rudy-boonstra-embed.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px; margin: 10px;" typeof="foaf:Image"><br> <em>Biology Professor Rudy Boonstra near Kluane Lake Research Station in Yukon (photo courtesy of Rudy Boonstra)</em></p> <p>Boonstra is part of a larger team affiliated with 91吃瓜 Scarborough鈥檚 <a href="http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/cns/about-us-mission">Centre for the Neurobiology of Stress</a> and the <a href="http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/biosci/centre-environmental-epigenetics-and-development-ceed">Centre for Environmental Epigenetics and Development</a> that looks at how&nbsp;the brain and nervous system are affected by stress.&nbsp;</p> <p>He is trying to determine if there are programming effects that somehow get encoded in hare offspring. In other words, do mothers during intense periods of high predation pass something on, and are their offspring fundamentally different than those whose mothers didn鈥檛 experience the same levels of stress?&nbsp;</p> <p>And, he wonders, are there lessons&nbsp;for humans, too?</p> <p>鈥淎 pregnant mother during war time doesn鈥檛 know if she will survive&nbsp;so she鈥檚 experiencing an enormous amount of anxiety,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e want to know whether that anxiety passes through the placenta, and if so, does it program the child in a certain way.鈥� &nbsp; &nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Sophia Lavergne</strong>, a PhD researcher at 91吃瓜 Scarborough, is also studying snowshoe hares. Affiliated with <a href="/news/u-t-study-offers-hope-sufferers-chronic-fatigue-syndrome">Associate Professor <strong>Patrick McGowan</strong>'s epigenetics lab</a>, she's taking a deeper look&nbsp;at the long-term effects of stress on showshoe hares.</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__4468 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" src="/sites/default/files/sophia-lavergne-embed.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px; margin: 10px;" typeof="foaf:Image"><br> <em>Sophia Lavergne, a PhD student at 91吃瓜 Scarborough, is studying snowshoe hares to explore the long-term consequences of stress (photo courtesy of Sophia Lavergne)</em></p> <p>She travels to the Kluane Lake Research Station in Yukon each year 鈥� for two weeks during the winter and four months during the summer 鈥�&nbsp;to study&nbsp;what baby snowshoe hares inherit from their moms.</p> <p>鈥淲e know a lot about stress in the lab, and it鈥檚 always assumed to be negative. But, a lot of this stress may be preparatory for the hares,鈥� she says, adding that it may help offspring adapt for life in a harsh environment. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to test this in a natural system where there is a host of different stressors&nbsp;like fluctuating temperatures, predators, food scarcity and other challenges in the environment.鈥� &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="/news/respect-snowshoe-hares-says-award-winning-phd-student-pretty-much-everything-boreal-forest-trying-e">Read more about Lavergne's research</a></h3> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 02 May 2017 16:31:33 +0000 ullahnor 107212 at