1
|
McGraw KJ, de Souza Penha VA. Using point-of-care devices to examine covariation among blood nutritional-physiological parameters and their relationships with poxvirus infection, habitat urbanization, and male plumage coloration in house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus). JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY. PART A, ECOLOGICAL AND INTEGRATIVE PHYSIOLOGY 2024; 341:440-449. [PMID: 38385786 DOI: 10.1002/jez.2796] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2023] [Revised: 01/31/2024] [Accepted: 02/07/2024] [Indexed: 02/23/2024]
Abstract
The development of inexpensive and portable point-of-care devices for measuring nutritional physiological parameters from blood (e.g., glucose, ketones) has accelerated our understanding and assessment of real-time variation in human health, but these have infrequently been tested or implemented in wild animals, especially in relation to other key biological or fitness-related traits. Here we used point-of-care devices to measure blood levels of glucose, ketones, uric acid, and triglycerides in free-ranging house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus)-a common songbird in North America that has been well-studied in the context of urbanization, nutrition, health, and sexual selection-during winter and examined (1) repeatability of these methods for evaluating blood levels in these wild passerines, (2) intercorrelations among these measurements within individuals, (3) how blood nutritional-physiology metrics related to a bird's body condition, habitat of origin (urban vs. suburban), poxvirus infection, and sex; and (4) if the expression of male sexually selected plumage coloration was linked to any of the nutritional-physiological metrics. All blood-nutritional parameters were repeatable. Also, there was significant positive covariation between concentrations of circulating triglycerides and glucose and triglycerides and uric acid. Urban finches had higher blood glucose concentrations than suburban finches, and pox-infected individuals had lower blood triglyceride concentrations than uninfected ones. Last, redder males had higher blood glucose, but lower uric acid levels. These results demonstrate that point-of-care devices can be useful, inexpensive ways of measuring real-time variation in the nutritional physiology of wild birds.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kevin J McGraw
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
| | - Victor Aguiar de Souza Penha
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
- Organismal and Evolutionary Research Programme, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
McDermott MT, Madden SA, Laubach ZM, Ayala MJ, Safran RJ. Females with Increased Costs Maintain Reproductive Output: A Field Experiment in a Common Songbird. Integr Comp Biol 2023; 63:23-33. [PMID: 37253622 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icad042] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 05/18/2023] [Indexed: 06/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Reproduction and self-maintenance are energetically costly activities involved in classic life history trade-offs. However, few studies have measured the responses of wild organisms to simultaneous changes in reproductive and self-maintenance costs, which may have interactive effects. In free-living female Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica), we simultaneously manipulated reproductive costs (by adding or removing two nestlings) and self-maintenance costs (by attaching a ∼1 g weight in the form of a GPS tag to half of our study birds) and measured mass, immune status, blood glucose, feather growth, and reproductive output (likelihood of a second clutch, number of eggs, and time between clutches). GPS tags allowed us to analyze how movement range size affected response to brood size manipulation. Tagging altered females' immune function as evidenced by an elevated heterophil to lymphocyte (H:L) ratio, but all females were equally likely to lay more eggs. There was no evidence of interactive effects of the tagging and brood size treatment. Range size was highly variable, and birds with large ranges grew feathers more slowly, but analyzing the effect of brood size manipulation while accounting for variation in range size did not result in any physiological response. Our results support the theoretical prediction that short-lived vertebrates do face a trade-off between reproduction and self-maintenance and, when faced with increased costs, tend to preserve investment in reproduction at the expense of parental condition. This experiment also helps us to understand how movement patterns may be relevant to life history trade-offs in wild birds.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Molly T McDermott
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder 334 UCB, 1900 Pleasant Street, CO 80309, USA
| | - Sage A Madden
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder 334 UCB, 1900 Pleasant Street, CO 80309, USA
- Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Zachary M Laubach
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder 334 UCB, 1900 Pleasant Street, CO 80309, USA
| | - Marina J Ayala
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder 334 UCB, 1900 Pleasant Street, CO 80309, USA
| | - Rebecca J Safran
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder 334 UCB, 1900 Pleasant Street, CO 80309, USA
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Deviche P, Sweazea K, Angelier F. Past and future: Urbanization and the avian endocrine system. Gen Comp Endocrinol 2023; 332:114159. [PMID: 36368439 DOI: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2022.114159] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2022] [Revised: 10/18/2022] [Accepted: 11/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
Urban environments are evolutionarily novel and differ from natural environments in many respects including food and/or water availability, predation, noise, light, air quality, pathogens, biodiversity, and temperature. The success of organisms in urban environments requires physiological plasticity and adjustments that have been described extensively, including in birds residing in geographically and climatically diverse regions. These studies have revealed a few relatively consistent differences between urban and non-urban conspecifics. For example, seasonally breeding urban birds often develop their reproductive system earlier than non-urban birds, perhaps in response to more abundant trophic resources. In most instances, however, analyses of existing data indicate no general pattern distinguishing urban and non-urban birds. It is, for instance, often hypothesized that urban environments are stressful, yet the activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis does not differ consistently between urban and non-urban birds. A similar conclusion is reached by comparing blood indices of metabolism. The origin of these disparities remains poorly understood, partly because many studies are correlative rather than aiming at establishing causality, which effectively limits our ability to formulate specific hypotheses regarding the impacts of urbanization on wildlife. We suggest that future research will benefit from prioritizing mechanistic approaches to identify environmental factors that shape the phenotypic responses of organisms to urbanization and the neuroendocrine and metabolic bases of these responses. Further, it will be critical to elucidate whether factors affect these responses (a) cumulatively or synergistically; and (b) differentially as a function of age, sex, reproductive status, season, and mobility within the urban environment. Research to date has used various taxa that differ greatly not only phylogenetically, but also with regard to ecological requirements, social systems, propensity to consume anthropogenic food, and behavioral responses to human presence. Researchers may instead benefit from standardizing approaches to examine a small number of representative models with wide geographic distribution and that occupy diverse urban ecosystems.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Pierre Deviche
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
| | - Karen Sweazea
- College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
| | - Frederic Angelier
- Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, UMR7372, CNRS - La Rochelle Universite, Villiers en Bois, France
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Tomášek O, Bobek L, Kauzálová T, Kauzál O, Adámková M, Horák K, Kumar SA, Manialeu JP, Munclinger P, Nana ED, Nguelefack TB, Sedláček O, Albrecht T. Latitudinal but not elevational variation in blood glucose level is linked to life history across passerine birds. Ecol Lett 2022; 25:2203-2216. [PMID: 36082485 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2022] [Accepted: 08/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Macrophysiological research is vital to our understanding of mechanisms underpinning global life history variation and adaptation to diverse environments. Here, we examined latitudinal and elevational variation in a key substrate of energy metabolism and an emerging physiological component of pace-of-life syndromes, blood glucose concentration. Our data, collected from 61 European temperate and 99 Afrotropical passerine species, revealed that baseline blood glucose increases with both latitude and elevation, whereas blood glucose stress response shows divergent directions, being stronger at low latitudes and high elevations. Low baseline glucose in tropical birds, compared to their temperate counterparts, was mainly explained by their low fecundity, consistent with the slow pace-of-life syndrome in the tropics. In contrast, elevational variation in this trait was decoupled from fecundity, implying a unique montane pace-of-life syndrome combining slow-paced life histories with fast-paced physiology. The observed patterns suggest that pace-of-life syndromes do not evolve along the single fast-slow axis.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Oldřich Tomášek
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia.,Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| | - Lukáš Bobek
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia
| | - Tereza Kauzálová
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia
| | - Ondřej Kauzál
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia.,Faculty of Science, Department of Ecology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| | - Marie Adámková
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia.,Faculty of Science, Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
| | - Kryštof Horák
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia
| | - Sampath Anandan Kumar
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia.,Faculty of Science, Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
| | - Judith Pouadjeu Manialeu
- Faculty of Science, Laboratory of Animal Physiology and Phytopharmacology, University of Dschang, Dschang, Cameroon
| | - Pavel Munclinger
- Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| | - Eric Djomo Nana
- Agricultural Research Institute for Development (IRAD), Yaoundé, Cameroon
| | - Télesphore Benoît Nguelefack
- Faculty of Science, Laboratory of Animal Physiology and Phytopharmacology, University of Dschang, Dschang, Cameroon
| | - Ondřej Sedláček
- Faculty of Science, Department of Ecology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| | - Tomáš Albrecht
- Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia.,Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Montoya B, Briga M, Jimeno B, Verhulst S. Glucose tolerance predicts survival in old zebra finches. J Exp Biol 2022; 225:275426. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.243205] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2021] [Accepted: 05/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
The capacity to deal with external and internal challenges is thought to affect fitness, and the age-linked impairment of this capacity defines the ageing process. Using a recently developed intra-peritoneal glucose tolerance test (GTT) in zebra finches, we tested for a link between the capacity to regulate glucose levels and survival. We also investigated for the effects of ambient factors, age, sex, and manipulated developmental and adult conditions (i.e. natal brood size and foraging cost, in a full factorial design) on glucose tolerance. Glucose tolerance was quantified using the incremental ‘area under the curve’ (AUC), with lower values indicating higher tolerance. Glucose tolerance predicted survival probability in old birds, above the median age, with individuals with higher glucose tolerance showing better survival than individuals with low or intermediate glucose tolerance. In young birds there was no association between glucose tolerance and survival. Experimentally induced adverse developmental conditions did not affect glucose tolerance, but low ambient temperature at sampling and hard foraging conditions during adulthood induced a fast return to baseline levels (i.e. high glucose tolerance). These findings can be interpreted as an efficient return to baseline glucose levels when energy requirements are high, with glucose presumably being used for energy metabolism or storage. Glucose tolerance was independent of sex. Our main finding that old birds with higher glucose tolerance had better survival supports the hypothesis that the capacity to efficiently cope with a physiological challenge predicts lifespan, at least in old birds.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Bibiana Montoya
- Laboratorio de Conducta Animal, Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Estación Científica La Malinche, Centro Tlaxcala de Biología de la Conducta (CTBC), Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Mexico
| | - Michael Briga
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
- Infectious Disease Epidemiology group, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Blanca Jimeno
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC), CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo 12, 13005 Ciudad Real, Spain
| | - Simon Verhulst
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
McGraw K, Penha VADS, Drake D, Kraberger S, Varsani A. Poxvirus infection in house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus): genome sequence analysis and patterns of infection in wild birds. Transbound Emerg Dis 2022; 69:e2318-e2328. [PMID: 35488713 DOI: 10.1111/tbed.14575] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2022] [Revised: 04/20/2022] [Accepted: 04/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Poxviruses (family: Poxviridae) infect many avian species, causing several disease outcomes, the most common of which are proliferative lesions on the legs, feet and/or head. Few avian studies of poxvirus to date have combined molecular and ecological analyses to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the identity and distribution of the disease in a population. Here we describe patterns of poxvirus infection in an urban population of house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) in Arizona (USA) and use high-throughput sequencing determine the genome sequence of the virus. We found that poxvirus prevalence, based on visual identification of pox lesions, was 7.2% (17 infected birds out of a total of 235 sampled) in our population during summer 2021. Disease severity was low; 14 of the 17 infected birds had a single small lesion on the skin overlaying the eye, leg and ear canal. All but two lesions were found on the feet; one bird had a lesion on the eye and the other in the ear opening. We also investigated possible temporal (i.e., date of capture) and biological correlates (e.g., age, sex, body condition, degree of infection with coccidian endoparasites) of poxvirus infection in urban-caught house finches during this time but found that none of these significantly correlated with poxvirus presence/absence. Two complete poxvirus genomes were determined from two infected birds. These genomes are ∼354,000 bp and share 99.7% similarity with each other, and 82% with a canarypox virus genome, the most closely related avipoxvirus. This novel finchpox virus is the first to be reported in house finches and has a similar genome organization to other avipoxviruses. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kevin McGraw
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Victor Aguiar de Souza Penha
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.,Graduate Program in Ecology and Conservation, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
| | - Dean Drake
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Simona Kraberger
- The Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA
| | - Arvind Varsani
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.,The Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA.,Structural Biology Research Unit, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7925, South Africa
| |
Collapse
|