The nexus of hair corticosterone level, immunocompetence, metabolic rates and overwinter survival in the root vole, Microtus oeconomus
| Autor: | Monika Wieczorek, Aneta Książek, Karol Zub, Marek Konarzewski, Paulina A. Szafrańska |
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| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Male
0106 biological sciences 0301 basic medicine endocrine system medicine.medical_specialty Population medicine.disease_cause 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Population density 03 medical and health sciences chemistry.chemical_compound Endocrinology Corticosterone Internal medicine Infestation polycyclic compounds medicine Animals education Microtus Probability education.field_of_study biology Arvicolinae Body Weight biology.organism_classification Survival Analysis 030104 developmental biology Natural population growth chemistry Female Animal Science and Zoology Vole Basal Metabolism Seasons Immunocompetence hormones hormone substitutes and hormone antagonists Hair |
| Zdroj: | General and Comparative Endocrinology. 250:46-53 |
| ISSN: | 0016-6480 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.ygcen.2017.05.021 |
| Popis: | Although corticosterone (CORT) regulates many physiological mechanisms, the associations between CORT levels, immunocompetence, energy expenditures and overwinter survival have not been examined. Here, we studied individual variation in CORT level extracted from hair, immunocompetence quantified as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (N/L) ratio, total white blood cells (WBC) and natural antibody levels (NAbs), along with the resting (RMR) and peak metabolic rates (PMR) and mortality during three consecutive winter seasons in a natural population of the root vole, Microtus oeconomus. In early winter, hair CORT level was strongly positively associated with body mass and inversely related to voles' ability to survive. We suggest that the observed association between hair CORT level and body mass may be the key component of the physiological nexus driving the survivorship of individual rodents. Additionally, hair CORT was a significant predictor of variation of the whole body RMR, which in turn enhanced overwinter survival in the studied population. On the other hand, hair CORT was not significantly associated with changes in the blood indices. Interestingly, the analysis carried out only during the first year of study (2008), which was characterized by a high population density and prevalence of infestation with a blood protozoan, Babesia spp., showed that the intensity of the infestation was negatively correlated with both the hair CORT level and the N/L ratio. Because CORT is often considered immunosuppressive, we expected a positive association between its level and the N/L ratio. However, hair CORT did not significantly correlate with the N/L ratio. We suggest that the lack of an association between hair CORT and the N/L ratio resulted from a small inter-individual variation in the N/L ratio in 2008, which was much higher and less variable than in the other years of our study. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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