Audrey Le Pogam

Université du Québec à Rimouski UQAR | uqar · Département de Biologie, Chimie et Géographie

Arctic breeding songbirds migrate early in the spring and can face winter environments requiring cold endurance throughout their journey. One such species, the snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), is known for its significant thermogenic capacity. Empirical studies suggest that buntings can indeed maintain winter cold acclimatization into the migr...

Cold acclimatization (phenotypic adjustments to cope with cold conditions) is an imperative requirement for birds living at high latitudes during the cold depths of winter. Despite the significant remodelling of key phenotypic traits and energetic costs associated with elevating cold endurance, winter cold acclimatization can also provide further c...

Resident temperate passerines adjust their phenotypes to cope with winter constraints, with peak performance in metabolic traits typically occurring during the coldest months. However, it is sparsely known whether cold-adapted northern species make similar adjustments when faced with variable seasonal environments. Life in near-constant cold could...

• Arctic animals inhabit some of the coldest environments on the planet and have evolved physiological mechanisms for minimizing heat loss under extreme cold. However, the Arctic is warming faster than the global average and how well Arctic animals tolerate even moderately high air temperatures (Ta) is unknown. • Using flow‐through respirometry, we...

Neonicotinoids are insecticides widely used as seed treatments that appear to have multiple negative effects on birds at a diversity of biological scales. Adult birds exposed to a low dose of imidacloprid, one of the most commonly used neonicotinoids, presented reduced fat stores, delayed migration and potentially altered orientation. However, litt...

Rising global temperatures are expected to increase reproductive costs for wildlife as greater thermoregulatory demands interfere with reproductive activities. However, predicting the temperatures at which reproductive performance is negatively impacted remains a significant hurdle. Using a thermoregulatory polygon approach, we derived a reproducti...

Rising global temperatures are expected to increase reproductive costs for wildlife as greater thermoregulatory demands interfere with essential breeding activities such as parental care. However, predicting the temperature threshold where reproductive performance is negatively impacted remains a significant hurdle. Using a novel thermoregulatory p...

Organisms are confronted with multiple environmental constraints to which they can respond through phenotypic adjustments that can potentially lead to physiological trade-offs. Contrary to species living only in temperate environments, the mechanisms underlying the phenotypic adjustments of species confronted with cold temperatures during most of t...

In long-distance migrants, preparation for migration is typically associated with increases in fat and body mass, and with an enlargement of pectoralis muscle mass that likely improves flight performance. Although changes in muscle mass or size have been well described in migratory birds, potential changes in muscle ultrastructure during this trans...

Seasonal changes in maximal thermogenic capacity (Msum) in wild black-capped chickadees suggests that adjustments in metabolic performance are slow and begin to take place before winter peaks. However, when mean minimal ambient temperature (Ta) reaches -10°C, chickadee's phenotype appears to provide enough spare capacity to endure days with colder...

Phenotypic flexibility has received considerable attention in the last decade; however, whereas many studies have reported amplitude of variation in phenotypic traits, much less attention has focused on the rate at which traits can adjust in response to sudden changes in the environment. We investigated whole-animal and muscle phenotypic changes oc...