A Potential Role for Parasites in the Maintenance of Color Polymorphism in Urban Birds

Autor: Charlotte Récapet, Gérard Leboucher, Julien Gasparini, Adrien Frantz, Anne-Caroline Prévot-Julliard, Hélène Corbel, Noémie I. Erin, Lisa Jacquin, Philippe Lenouvel
Přispěvatelé: Laboratoire Ecologie et évolution, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Department of Biology [Montréal], McGill University = Université McGill [Montréal, Canada], Evolution, adaptation et comportement, Département écologie évolutive [LBBE], Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558 (LBBE), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558 (LBBE), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement (VAS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre d'Ecologie et des Sciences de la COnservation (CESCO), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire Éthologie Cognition Développement (LECD), Université Paris Nanterre (UPN), Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE-IPHC), Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC), Université Louis Pasteur - Strasbourg I-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Louis Pasteur - Strasbourg I-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL)
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Oecologia
Oecologia, Springer Verlag, 2013, 173 (3), pp.1089-1099. ⟨10.1007/s00442-013-2663-2⟩
Oecologia, 2013, 173 (3), pp.1089-1099. ⟨10.1007/s00442-013-2663-2⟩
ISSN: 0029-8549
1432-1939
DOI: 10.1007/s00442-013-2663-2⟩
Popis: International audience; Urbanization is a major challenge for biodiversity conservation, yet the evolutionary processes taking place in urbanized areas remain poorly known. Human activities in cities set new selective forces in motion which need to be investigated to predict the evolutionary responses of animal species living in urban areas. In this study, we investigated the role of urbanization and parasites in the maintenance of melanin-based color polymorphism in the feral pigeon Columba livia. Using a correlative approach, we tested whether differently colored genotypes displayed alternative phenotypic responses to urbanization, by comparing body condition, blood parasite prevalence and parasite load between colored morphs along an urbanization gradient. Body condition did not vary with urbanization, but paler individuals had a higher body condition than darker individuals. Moreover, paler morphs were less often parasitized than darker morphs in moderately urbanized habitats, but their parasite prevalence increased with urbanization. In contrast, darker morphs had similar parasite prevalence along the urbanization gradient. This suggests that paler morphs did better than darker morphs in moderately urbanized environments but were negatively affected by increasing urbanization, while darker morphs performed equally in all environments. Thus, differently colored individuals were distributed non-randomly across the urban habitat and suffered different parasite risk according to their location (a gene-by-environment interaction). This suggests that melanin-based coloration might reflect alternative strategies to cope with urbanization via different exposure or susceptibility to parasites. Spatial variability of parasite pressures linked with urbanization may, thus, play a central role in the maintenance of plumage color polymorphism in this urban species.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: