Feather corticosterone reveals developmental challenges in a long‐term study of juvenile northern spotted owls

1. Corticosterone is a steroid hormone integral to a variety of physiological pathways and is strongly associated with the vertebrate stress–response. In avian species, circulating corticosterone is sequestered into developing feathers and is used as an indicator of energy allocation during feather growth and widely applied in conservation physiology. 2. The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is a federally threatened old–growth forest obligate of conservation concern endemic to the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada. The effects of landscape characteristics and individual variation on early development in spotted owls remain unstudied despite long recognition of this knowledge gap and its potential importance to species conservation. 3. We quantified corticosterone concentrations in 4,720 feathers from 1,056 juvenile spotted owls across seven study areas between 2001 and 2017. We used an information–theoretic approach to examine the environmental and...1. 皮质酮（Corticosterone）是一类类固醇激素，在多种生理通路中发挥不可或缺的作用，且与脊椎动物的应激反应密切相关。在鸟类中，循环中的皮质酮会被富集至发育中的羽毛内，可作为羽毛生长阶段能量分配的检测指标，目前已被广泛应用于保护生理学（conservation physiology）领域。 2. 北方斑点鸮（Strix occidentalis caurina）是被美国联邦列为受威胁物种的旧林专性物种，属于具有较高保护关注度的类群，为美国与加拿大太平洋西北地区的特有物种。尽管学界早已意识到这一研究空白及其对物种保护的潜在重要性，但景观特征与个体差异对斑点鸮早期发育的影响迄今仍未得到研究。 3. 我们于2001年至2017年间，在7个研究区域内采集了1056只幼年北方斑点鸮的4720枚羽毛，并对其中的皮质酮浓度进行了定量检测。我们采用信息论方法（information-theoretic approach）对环境及……