The cost of an immune response: vaccination reduces parental effort
(2000) In Ecology Letters 3(5). p.382-386- Abstract
- A fundamental assumption of theories of the ecology and evolution of inducible defences is that protective responses to attacks by parasites or predators should not only have benefits, but also costs. The vertebrate immune system is by far the best studied example of an inducible defence, yet little is known about the costs of an immune response, especially in natural populations. To test: if an immune response per se is costly, we induced an antibody response in female blue tits, Parus caeruleus, by immunising them with human diphtheria-tetanus vaccine, and compared their nestling-feeding rate with that of saline-injected controls. We found that vaccinated females reduced their nestling feeding rate, thus demonstrating a cost of the... (More)
- A fundamental assumption of theories of the ecology and evolution of inducible defences is that protective responses to attacks by parasites or predators should not only have benefits, but also costs. The vertebrate immune system is by far the best studied example of an inducible defence, yet little is known about the costs of an immune response, especially in natural populations. To test: if an immune response per se is costly, we induced an antibody response in female blue tits, Parus caeruleus, by immunising them with human diphtheria-tetanus vaccine, and compared their nestling-feeding rate with that of saline-injected controls. We found that vaccinated females reduced their nestling feeding rate, thus demonstrating a cost of the immune response in the currency of parental effort. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/145946
- author
- Råberg, Lars LU ; Nilsson, Jan-Åke LU ; Ilmonen, P ; Stjernman, Martin LU and Hasselquist, Dennis LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2000
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Ecology Letters
- volume
- 3
- issue
- 5
- pages
- 382 - 386
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:0033832544
- ISSN
- 1461-023X
- DOI
- 10.1046/j.1461-0248.2000.00154.x
- project
- Immunoecology
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 1dd4ec91-ecfa-4d26-ab74-1d265e7d2243 (old id 145946)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 11:37:32
- date last changed
- 2024-03-25 06:27:34
@article{1dd4ec91-ecfa-4d26-ab74-1d265e7d2243, abstract = {{A fundamental assumption of theories of the ecology and evolution of inducible defences is that protective responses to attacks by parasites or predators should not only have benefits, but also costs. The vertebrate immune system is by far the best studied example of an inducible defence, yet little is known about the costs of an immune response, especially in natural populations. To test: if an immune response per se is costly, we induced an antibody response in female blue tits, Parus caeruleus, by immunising them with human diphtheria-tetanus vaccine, and compared their nestling-feeding rate with that of saline-injected controls. We found that vaccinated females reduced their nestling feeding rate, thus demonstrating a cost of the immune response in the currency of parental effort.}}, author = {{Råberg, Lars and Nilsson, Jan-Åke and Ilmonen, P and Stjernman, Martin and Hasselquist, Dennis}}, issn = {{1461-023X}}, language = {{eng}}, number = {{5}}, pages = {{382--386}}, publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}}, series = {{Ecology Letters}}, title = {{The cost of an immune response: vaccination reduces parental effort}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1461-0248.2000.00154.x}}, doi = {{10.1046/j.1461-0248.2000.00154.x}}, volume = {{3}}, year = {{2000}}, }