Immune Activation Reduces Sperm Quality in the Great Tit

Immune Activation Reduces Sperm Quality in the Great Tit

Mounting an immune response against pathogens incurs costs to organisms by its effects on important life-history traits, such as reproductive investment and survival. As shown recently, immune activation produces large amounts of reactive species and is suggested to induce oxidative stress. Sperm are highly susceptible to oxidative stress, which can negatively impact sperm function and ultimate...

Correlates of Variation in Flight Feather Quality in the Great Tit Parus major

Maternal yolk testosterone does not modulate parasite susceptibility or immune function in great tit nestlings

BARBARA TSCHIRREN*, VERENA SALADIN*, PATRICK S. FITZE†, HUBERT SCHWABL‡ and HEINZ RICHNER* * Evolutionary Ecology Group, Zoological Institute, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland; † Behavioural Ecology Group, Zoology Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK; and ‡ School of Biological Sciences, Centre for Reproductive Biology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99...

The quality of great scallop (Pecten maximus) sperm after thawing.

Most publications devoted to the cryopreservation of mollusc sperm have focused on the definition of technical protocols, avoiding the description of sperm quality after thawing. The present study investigated the effects of cryopreservation on sperm quality in the great scallop. Wild scallop were fished during the natural spawning period and conditioned in the hatchery before use. Sperm sample...

Realized heritability of personalities in the great tit (Parus major).

Behaviour under conditions of mild stress shows consistent patterns in all vertebrates: exploratory behaviour, boldness, aggressiveness covary in the same way. The existence of highly consistent individual variation in these behavioural strategies, also referred to as personalities or coping styles, allows us to measure the behaviour under standardized conditions on birds bred in captivity, lin...