Comparative Study On Stress Adaptation Of Tree Sparrow(Passer Montanus) In Urban And Rural Of Beijing

Urbanization increases pressure on birds,and a series of changes in bird behavior or physiology may occur under short-term or long-term stress response.Corticosterone is the main stress hormone that can be used to reflect the stress level of birds to understand the environmental influence on bird survival and reproduction.It is feasible to detect the endocrine condition and reflect the long-term physiological stress of birds through the level of feather corticosterone.In this paper,we measured the physiological indicators of the tree sparrow(feather corticosterone concentration,ratio of hererophils to lymphocytes in blood leukocytes,body condition index)and flight initiation distance(FID)to reflect stress conditions of birds in urban and rual areas,to explore the impact of urbanization on birds,provide a theoretical basis for the birds to adapt to urbanization mechanism.The results of this study are as follows:(1)The detdction of feather corticosterone in urban and rural tree sparrows was detected.The results showed that the concentration of feather corticosterone in urban areas was significantly higher than in rural areas(P=0.026<0.05).Urbanization affected the physiological stress response of tree sparrows.(2)The ratio of hererophils to lymphocytes was higher in urbans in winter than in rurals(P=0.037),indicating that urban tree sparrows face greater pressure than rural.(3)The tree sparrows collected in summer and winter were measured for body sizes.The body mass was used as the dependent variable and the sputum length was used as the independent variable for the least squares regression analysis.The body condition index was obtained.The difference in body condition index between urban and suburb areas was compared by independent sample t test.The results showed that there was no difference in body condition index between urban and rural areas(P>0.05),indicating that urbanization did not affect the tree sparrow's body condition.(4)The FID in urban and rural was detected in winter.The results showed that the tree sparrow FID in urban was significantly shorter than in rural(P=0.000<0.05),indicating that sparrow had a strong adaptability to Beijing's urbanized environment.The above results indicated that the detection of feather corticosterone,the ratio of hererophils to lymphocytes,body condition,and FID could be used as indicators of bird stress monitoring,reflecting the impact of urbanization on tree sparrow.At the same time,it also proved the effectiveness of feather corticosterone in the study of avian stress adaptation.