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Although laboratory studies have shown that chronic exposure to elevated glucocorticoids during development has profound effects on animals, we still have a poor understanding of the consequences of early-life stress on wild individuals. In an island population of Savannah sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis), I examined multiple hypotheses to explain how elevated corticosterone exposure during the nestling period influenced both hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis function and the subsequent movement and survival of young after they fledged the nest. Corticosterone-treated nestlings had higher baseline corticosterone levels and lower stress reactivity than untreated individuals, and were more sensitive to inclement weather.Corticosterone-treated individuals also had higher rates of temporary emigration outside of the study site than sham or controls. My results provide support for both the ceiling hypothesis and CORT-activity hypothesis, and highlight the importance of tracking individuals across multiple life stages to understand how early life events carry-over to influence both physiology and behaviour.iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Stress-induced increases in glucocorticoids (GCs) modulate behavior and are key in directing energy reserves. The capture-restraint protocol was developed to experimentally stimulate and quantify the magnitude of the acute stress response by comparing baseline GC levels with those collected after restraining a subject for a period of time, typically 30 min. This protocol has been used extensively in the field and lab, yet few studies have investigated whether it parallels hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activation under natural acute stressors. We examined the hypothesis that acute stress from the capture-restraint protocol accurately mimics the adrenocortical response induced by a natural acute stressor. Using wild-caught rock pigeons Columba livia in a repeated-measures design, we compared plasma corticosterone (CORT) concentrations at baseline, after exposure to acute capture-restraint (30 min in a cloth bag), after tethering in a harness (30 min), and after a real but nonlethal attack by a predatory raptor. As found in previous studies, the capture-restraint treatment significantly increased CORT levels of pigeons compared with baseline. However, we also found that when pigeons were exposed to an attack by a raptor, their CORT levels were more than twice as high compared with the capture-restraint treatment. Our results provide evidence that an authentic acute stressor can activate the HPA axis to a greater extent than the capture-restraint protocol and also suggest that real predation attempts can have a significant effect on acute stress levels of wild birds.

Conspecific density is widely recognized as an important ecological factor across the animal kingdom; however, the physiological impacts are less thoroughly described. In fact, population density is rarely mentioned as a factor in physiological studies on captive animals and, when it is infrequently addressed, the animals used are reared and housed at densities far above those in nature, making the translation of results from the laboratory to natural systems difficult. We survey the literature to highlight this important ecophysiological gap and bring attention to the possibility that conspecific density prior to experimentation may be a critical factor influencing results. Across three taxa: mammals, birds, and fish, we present evidence from ecology that density influences glucocorticoid levels, immune function, and body condition with the intention of stimulating discussion and increasing consideration of population density in physiology studies. We conclude with several directives to improve the applicability of insights gained in the laboratory to organisms in the natural environment.