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Attainment of Thermoregulation as Affected by Environmental Factors¹

Institute of Biology, Humboldt-University of Berlin, 10115, Germany

² Corresponding author: barbara.tzschentke{at}rz.hu-berlin.de

The review addresses the development of thermoregulation in poultry embryos as well as the effect of acute and chronic changes of environmental factors on this process and the incubation temperature being the foremost. In poultry, the early development of adaptive body functions, like the thermoregulatory system, is characterized by the following peculiarities. First, the development of peripheral as well as central nervous thermoregulatory mechanisms start during the prenatal ontogeny. However, their maturity is attained during early postnatal development. In the perinatal period, environmental factors have a high effect on development of temperature regulation. Second, acute changes in the environmental conditions induce as a rule first uncoordinated and immediately nonadaptive reactions. Later, the uncoordinated nonadaptive reactions change into coordinated (adaptive) reactions. Prenatal environmental influences may have a training effect on the postnatal efficiency of the thermo-regulatory system. Third, functional systems of the organism develop from an open loop system without feedback control into a closed system controlled by a feedback mechanism. During this critical period, the actual environment modulates the development of the respective physiological control systems for the entire life period, especially by changes in neuroorganization and expression of related effector genes. Knowledge on these mechanisms might be specifically used to generate long-term adaptation of the organism to the postnatal climatic conditions (perinatal epigenetic temperature adaptation). In poultry, perinatal epigenetic temperature adaptation was developed by changes in the incubation temperature. When a comparison is made in birds, which were incubated at 37.5°C, a low incubation temperature induced postnatal cold adaptation, and warm incubation temperature induced postnatal heat adaptation. Perinatal epigenetic temperature adaptation exhibited changes in the neuronal thermosensitivity in the hypothalamus as well as in the peripheral thermoregulatory mechanisms. These alterations could be already found at the end of incubation. Further, temperature-experienced embryos have a lower c-fos expression than in the control after acute heat stress.

Key Words: thermoregulation • environmental factor • poultry embryo • imprinting • critical period

¹ Presented as part of the Embryo Symposium: Managing the Embryo for Performance, July 19, 2006, at the Poultry Science Association Annual Meeting, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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