Female plumage spottiness signals parasite resistance in the barn owl (Tyto alba)

Roulin, Alexandre; Riols, Christian; Dijkstra, Cor; Ducrest, Anne–Lyse

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.beheco.a000371

Cited by 167 publications

(174 citation statements)

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“…1a) differed between colonies and years, which agrees with the idea that host exploitation rate is a dynamic process that can fluctuate over space and time (Lively 1999). Although the importance of incorporating measures of parasite performance (and in turn fitness) in host-parasite coevolutionary scenarios has been stressed in recent studies (Sukhdeo and Bansemir 1996;Poulin and Combes 1999;Thomas et al 2002), we still know little about the relative effects of host immunocompetence, nutritional status, and other phenotypic traits on parasite fitness (e.g., Clayton et al 1999;Jokela et al 1999;Møller 2000;Roulin et al 2001;Blanford et al 2003;Pulkkinen and Ebert 2004;Krasnov et al 2005;De Bellocq et al 2006;Tseng 2006) in comparison to our knowledge of the effects of parasites on host fitness (Combes 2001). However, the present study is of importance because it highlights that the understanding of parasite strategies is a necessary step toward an appraisal of the outcome and evolution of hostparasite interactions.…”

Section: Understanding Parasite Strategiessupporting

confidence: 63%

What Makes a Host Profitable? Parasites Balance Host Nutritive Resources against Immunity

Bize

Jeanneret

Klopfenstein

et al. 2008

The American Naturalist

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Numerous host qualities can modulate parasite fitness, and among these, host nutritive resources and immunity are of prime importance. Indeed, parasite fitness increases with the amount of nutritive resources extracted from the host body and decreases with host immune response. To maximize fitness, parasites have therefore to balance these two host components. Yet, because host nutritive resources and immunity both increase with host body condition, it is unclear whether parasites perform better on hosts in prime, intermediate, or poor condition. We investigated blood meal size and survival of the ectoparasitic louse fly Crataerina melbae in relation to body condition and cutaneous immune response of their Alpine swift (Apus melba) nestling hosts. Louse flies took a smaller blood meal and lived a shorter period of time when feeding on nestlings that were experimentally food deprived or had their cutaneous immune response boosted with methionine. Consistent with these results, louse fly survival was the highest when feeding on nonexperimental nestlings in intermediate body condition. Our findings emphasize that although hosts in poor condition had a reduced immunocompetence, parasites may have avoided them because individuals in poor condition did not provide adequate resources. These findings highlight the fact that giving host immunocompetence primary consideration can result in a biased appraisal of host-parasite interactions.

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Section: Understanding Parasite Strategiessupporting

confidence: 63%

What Makes a Host Profitable? Parasites Balance Host Nutritive Resources against Immunity

Bize

Jeanneret

Klopfenstein

et al. 2008

The American Naturalist

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“…The ectoparasitic copepods commonly referred to as salmon lice (or sea lice) have been identified as an immediate aquaculture-related threat to wild stocks (Krkošek et al 2007). It is therefore of interest to investigate whether increased melanism in salmon is associated with reduced ectoparasite prevalence and fecundity, as has already been reported in birds (Roulin et al 2003(Roulin et al , 2001). Identification and concomitant selection for more stress-resistant individuals in aquaculture could also potentially alleviate other critical industry issues related to disease, welfare and sustainability of feed resources (Fevolden, 1992;Huntingford et al, 2006;Small et al, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Melanin-based skin spots reflect stress responsiveness in salmonid fish

Kittilsen

Schjolden

Beitnes-Johansen

et al. 2009

Hormones and Behavior

134

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This version available http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/7671/ NERC has developed NORA to enable users to access research outputs wholly or partially funded by NERC. Copyright and other rights for material on this site are retained by the authors and/or other rights owners. Users should read the terms and conditions of use of this material at http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/policies.html#access This document is the author's final manuscript version of the journal article, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer review process. Some differences between this and the publisher's version remain. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from this article. www.elsevier.comContact CEH NORA team at nora@ceh.ac.ukThe NERC and CEH trade marks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. Wilson et al. 1994;Réale et al. 2007). Notwithstanding a certain lack of consensus in terminology, the evolution of these analogues of human personality has evoked considerable scientific interest. Among the questions raised are by which mechanisms behavioural syndromes are inherited, how the variation is maintained, which circumstances benefit different complex phenotypes, and what are the costs and benefits of limited plasticity imposed by more or less fixed trait associations (DeWitt et al. 1998;Koolhaas et al. 1999;Sih et al. 2004; Dingemanse and Réale 2005;McElreath et al. 2007;Réale et al. 2007;Wolf et al. 2007). Furthermore, in the barn owl (Tyto Alba) melanin-based colouration is associated with several behavioural, morphological and physiological characteristics that have been linked to stress coping ability (Almasi et al. 2008).Based on observations that HR and LR trout differed in melanin pigmentation our hypothesis was that spotted fish, in the closely related specie Atlantic salmon (Salmo Salar), 5 would show a lower cortisol reponse to stress when compared to a non-spotted group of individuals. Furthermore, several documented changes in the behaviour of the two trout lines made us predict that also behaviour would differ between groups of spotted and non-spotted fish. The main focus of this study was therefore to test the hypothesis that there exist an association between melanin-based pigmentation and hypothalamus-pituitary-interrenal (HPIaxis) reactivity in salmonid fish. Furthermore, we tested the prediction that behavioural differences are present in two groups of fish chosen divergently on melanin pigmentation. Materials and methods Quantification of melanin-based colorationIn the studies described below, photographs of experimental fish were captured with a Canon EOS 450D digital camera and transferred to a computer for further analyses of melanin-based coloration. Prior to photography, each fish were sedated in 200 mg/l MS-222 and placed adjacent to a measuring tape with millimetre resolution, allowing for an accurate estimation of the area where spots were counted. The d...

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“…In Switzerland, darker reddishbrown males were observed to produce more offspring per breeding attempt and to sustain higher feeding rates, suggesting that these males invest more effort per breeding attempt (Roulin et al, 2001a). If we turn to the other trait, plumage spottiness, heavily spotted females produced offspring that were more immunocompetent towards an artificially administrated antigen (Roulin et al, 2000), resistant to ectoparasites (Roulin et al, 2001b) and developmentally stable (Roulin et al, 2003). These results suggest that eu-and phaeomelanin plumage traits signal different qualities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Similarly, we can wonder why the phenotypic correlation between the two plumage traits is more intense in males than females. Female plumage spottiness has been shown to signal immunocompetence towards an artificially administrated antigen (Roulin et al, 2000), ectoparasite resistance of offspring (Roulin et al, 2001a) and offspring developmental homeostasis (Roulin et al, 2003), whereas female plumage coloration was correlated with laying date (lighter coloured females bred earlier, Roulin et al, 2001b). Therefore, if immunocompetence/parasite resistance/ developmental homeostasis and an early initiation of breeding activities are qualities that rely on different phenotypic or genotypic characteristics, these qualities may be signalled with traits that are not correlated.…”

Section: Genetics Of Melanin Plumage Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic and environmental components of variation in eumelanin and phaeomelanin sex-traits in the barn owl

2003

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Knowledge of the mechanism underlying the expression of melanin-based sex-traits may help us to understand their signalling function. Potential sources of inter-individual variation are the total amount of melanins produced but also how biochemical precursors are allocated into the eumelanin and phaeomelanin pigments responsible for black and reddish-brown colours, respectively. In the barn owl (Tyto alba), a eumelanin trait (referred to as 'plumage spottiness') signals immunocompetence towards an artificially administrated antigen and parasite resistance in females, whereas a phaeomelanin trait ('plumage coloration') signals investment in reproduction in males. This raises the question whether plumage coloration and spottiness are expressed independent of each other. To investigate this question, we have studied the genetics of these two plumage traits. Crossfostering experiments showed that, for each trait, phenotypic variation has a strong genetic component, whereas no environmental component could be detected. Plumage coloration is autosomally inherited, as suggested by the similar paternal-to-maternal contribution to offspring coloration. In contrast, plumage spottiness may be sex-linked inherited (in birds, females are heterogametic). That proposition arises from the observation that sons resembled their mother more than their father and that daughters resembled only their father. Despite plumage coloration and spottiness signalling different qualities, these two traits are not inherited independent of each other, darker birds being spottier. This suggests that the extent to which coloration and spottiness are expressed depends on the total amount of melanin produced (with more melanin leading to a both darker and spottier plumage) rather than on differential allocation of melanin into plumage coloration and spottiness (in such a case, darker birds should have been less spotted). A gene controlling the production of melanin pigments may be located on sex-chromosomes, since the phenotypic correlation between coloration and spottiness was stronger in males than in females.

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Female plumage spottiness signals parasite resistance in the barn owl (Tyto alba)

Cited by 167 publications

References 42 publications

What Makes a Host Profitable? Parasites Balance Host Nutritive Resources against Immunity

What Makes a Host Profitable? Parasites Balance Host Nutritive Resources against Immunity

Melanin-based skin spots reflect stress responsiveness in salmonid fish

Genetic and environmental components of variation in eumelanin and phaeomelanin sex-traits in the barn owl

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