January 24, 2020
By Gretchen Phillips
Ava Chrisler ‘20 presented a poster of current work on her St. Mary’s Project, “Modeling glucocorticoid physiology, glucose mobilization, and return rate in migrating Mountain White-crowned Sparrows” at the Annual Meeting for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology held January 3-7, in Austin, Texas.
Chrisler, with assistance from Melanie Kimball ’19, and mentorship of Assistant Professor of Physiology Jessica Malisch, utilized a free-living population of Mountain White-crowned Sparrows to characterize the glucocorticoid and hyperglycemic response to acute challenge.
Chisler explained that “this study is unique in that we investigate the potential link between energy mobilization and year-to-year survival in a free-living migratory species.” She predicts that body condition and fat score will be positive predictors of glucose mobilization.
