The oxidative costs of territory quality and offspring provisioning

Abstract

The costs of reproduction are an important constraint that shapes the evolution of life histories, yet our understanding of the proximate mechanism(s) leading to such life-history trade-offs is not well understood. Oxidative stress is a strong candidate measure thought to mediate the costs of reproduction, yet empirical evidence supporting that increased reproductive investment leads to oxidative stress is equivocal. We investigated whether territory quality and offspring provisioning increase oxidative stress in male snow buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) using a repeated sampling design. We show that arrival oxidative stress is not a constraint on territory quality or the number of offspring fledged. Nevertheless, owners of higher-quality territories experienced an oxidative cost, with this cost increasing more rapidly in younger males. Males that provisioned offspring at a high rate also experienced increased oxidative stress. Together, these findings support the potential role of oxidative stress in mediating life-history trade-offs. Future work should consider that reproductive workload is not limited to offspring care, and other activities -including territory defence -may contribute significantly to the costs of reproduction.

Alternative reproductive tactics, sperm mobility and oxidative stress in Carollia perspicillata (Seba’s short-tailed bat)

“…This may indicate that securing privileged access to mates, which comprises guarding, courtship and vocalization behaviours, implies higher pre-copulatory investment, such as higher metabolism and elevated cellular detoxification, but does not generate excessive lipid peroxidation in harem males (Alonso- Alvarez et al 2007;Guindre-Parker et al 2013). …”

“…They may also endure repetitive injuries during contest, leading to immune responses such as antimicrobial defences and inflammations. These higher reproductive expenditures are expected to induce oxidative costs (Guindre-Parker et al 2013;Costantini 2014) and favour the allocation of more antioxidants to somatic functions related to pre-copulatory competition and hence less to the protection of sperm cells.…”

Oxidative stress during courtship affects male and female reproductive effort differentially in a wild bird with biparental care

“…Also, lower red blood cell resistance to oxidative burst and higher levels of oxidative damage in lipids and proteins before pair formation or during courtship or incubation have been associated with smaller litter size at birth in laboratory mice (Stier et al, 2012), decreased male parental effort in Florida scrub jays (Heiss and Schoech, 2012), smaller clutch size, lower female hatching probability and lower male survival probability to the next reproductive event in alpine swifts (Bize et al, 2008), and a decline in lifetime total breeding events and greater aging rate in captive zebra finches (Kim et al, 2009). However, no association between oxidative markers upon arrival to the courting site and territory quality or number of fledglings produced by snow buntings was found (Guindre-Parker et al, 2013).…”

“…Various studies in wild animals have found the predicted positive associations between reproduction, daily energy consumption and oxidative damage in lipids and proteins (Bergeron et al, 2011;Heiss and Schoech, 2012;Fletcher et al, 2013;Costantini et al, 2014). Furthermore, studies in wild and captive animals have found evidence of a potential oxidative imbalance resulting from reproduction, including higher production of reactive oxygen metabolites (Casagrande et al, 2012;Stier et al, 2012;Guindre-Parker et al, 2013), decreased antioxidant capacity (Wiersma et al, 2004;Costantini et al, 2010;van de Crommenacker et al, 2011) and diminished resistance to rapid temporary ROS overproduction (Alonso-Alvarez et al, 2004;Bertrand et al, 2006;Losdat et al, 2011;Christe et al, 2012). Nevertheless, other studies have failed to find a relationship between reproductive effort and oxidative damage (Nussey et al, 2009;Isaksson et al, 2011a,b;Aloise-King et al, 2013;Wegmann et al, 2015), have found increased antioxidant response in females' liver cells during parental care (Yang et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2014), or have found less oxidative damage in serum, liver, kidney and muscle cells of reproductive compared with non-reproductive individuals (Garratt et al, 2011Ołdakowski et al, 2012).…”

Plasmodium infection and oxidative status in breeding great tits, Parus major

“…Reproduction can also affect oxidative status. High energy investment during reproduction has been linked with a decreased resistance to oxidative stress [37], decreased antioxidant defences [38, 39] and an increased oxidative stress [40, 41]. There can also be resource allocation trade-offs in reproductively active individuals [42] leading to a lower immunocompetence (i.e.…”