Parental morph combination does not influence innate immune function in nestlings of a colour-polymorphic African raptor
Nebel, Carina LU ; Amar, Arjun ; Hegemann, Arne LU ; Isaksson, Caroline LU
and Sumasgutner, Petra
LU
(2021)
In Scientific Reports
11(1).
- Abstract
Conditions experienced during early life can have long-term individual consequences by influencing dispersal, survival, recruitment and productivity. Resource allocation during development can have strong carry-over effects onto these key parameters and is directly determined by the quality of parental care. In the black sparrowhawk (Accipiter melanoleucus), a colour-polymorphic raptor, parental morphs influence nestling somatic growth and survival, with pairs consisting of different colour morphs (‘mixed-morph pairs’) producing offspring with lower body mass indices, but higher local apparent survival rates. Resource allocation theory could explain this relationship, with nestlings of mixed-morph pairs trading off a more effective... (More)
Conditions experienced during early life can have long-term individual consequences by influencing dispersal, survival, recruitment and productivity. Resource allocation during development can have strong carry-over effects onto these key parameters and is directly determined by the quality of parental care. In the black sparrowhawk (Accipiter melanoleucus), a colour-polymorphic raptor, parental morphs influence nestling somatic growth and survival, with pairs consisting of different colour morphs (‘mixed-morph pairs’) producing offspring with lower body mass indices, but higher local apparent survival rates. Resource allocation theory could explain this relationship, with nestlings of mixed-morph pairs trading off a more effective innate immune system against somatic growth. We quantified several innate immune parameters of nestlings (hemagglutination, hemolysis, bacteria-killing capacity and haptoglobin concentration) and triggered an immune response by injecting lipopolysaccharides. Although we found that nestlings with lower body mass index had higher local survival rates, we found no support for the proposed hypothesis: neither baseline immune function nor the induced immune response of nestlings was associated with parental morph combination. Our results suggest that these immune parameters are unlikely to be involved in providing a selective advantage for the different colour morphs’ offspring, and thus innate immunity does not appear to be traded off against a greater allocation of resources to somatic growth. Alternative hypotheses explaining the mechanism of a low nestling body mass index leading to subsequent higher local survival could be related to the post-fledgling dependency period or differences in dispersal patterns for the offspring from different morph combinations.
(Less)
- author
- Nebel, Carina
LU
; Amar, Arjun
; Hegemann, Arne
LU
; Isaksson, Caroline
LU
and Sumasgutner, Petra
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021-12-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Scientific Reports
- volume
- 11
- issue
- 1
- article number
- 11053
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:34040034
- scopus:85106930289
- ISSN
- 2045-2322
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41598-021-90291-7
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Funding Information: This study was financially supported by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence and a joint NRF-STINT (Grant number STINT160909188048, UID: 106777 to A.A and P.S. and SA2016-6812 to C.I. and A.H.). During her studies, C.N. received funding from UCT’s International Student’s Scholarship; and P.S. from the Claude Leon Foundation. A.H. was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Grant 2018-04278).
- id
- 57f4fad1-7d8b-447a-ae63-fbbbe5968003
- date added to LUP
- 2021-06-14 15:09:52
- date last changed
- 2024-05-04 08:31:07
@article{57f4fad1-7d8b-447a-ae63-fbbbe5968003,
abstract = {{<p>Conditions experienced during early life can have long-term individual consequences by influencing dispersal, survival, recruitment and productivity. Resource allocation during development can have strong carry-over effects onto these key parameters and is directly determined by the quality of parental care. In the black sparrowhawk (Accipiter melanoleucus), a colour-polymorphic raptor, parental morphs influence nestling somatic growth and survival, with pairs consisting of different colour morphs (‘mixed-morph pairs’) producing offspring with lower body mass indices, but higher local apparent survival rates. Resource allocation theory could explain this relationship, with nestlings of mixed-morph pairs trading off a more effective innate immune system against somatic growth. We quantified several innate immune parameters of nestlings (hemagglutination, hemolysis, bacteria-killing capacity and haptoglobin concentration) and triggered an immune response by injecting lipopolysaccharides. Although we found that nestlings with lower body mass index had higher local survival rates, we found no support for the proposed hypothesis: neither baseline immune function nor the induced immune response of nestlings was associated with parental morph combination. Our results suggest that these immune parameters are unlikely to be involved in providing a selective advantage for the different colour morphs’ offspring, and thus innate immunity does not appear to be traded off against a greater allocation of resources to somatic growth. Alternative hypotheses explaining the mechanism of a low nestling body mass index leading to subsequent higher local survival could be related to the post-fledgling dependency period or differences in dispersal patterns for the offspring from different morph combinations.</p>}},
author = {{Nebel, Carina and Amar, Arjun and Hegemann, Arne and Isaksson, Caroline and Sumasgutner, Petra}},
issn = {{2045-2322}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{12}},
number = {{1}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{Scientific Reports}},
title = {{Parental morph combination does not influence innate immune function in nestlings of a colour-polymorphic African raptor}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90291-7}},
doi = {{10.1038/s41598-021-90291-7}},
volume = {{11}},
year = {{2021}},
}