Baseline and stress-induced levels of corticosterone in male and female Afrotropical and European temperate stonechats during breeding

dc.contributor.authorApfelbeck, Beate
dc.contributor.authorHelm, Barbara
dc.contributor.authorIllera, Juan Carlos
dc.contributor.authorMortega, Kim G.
dc.contributor.authorSmiddy, Patrick
dc.contributor.authorEvans, Neil P.
dc.contributor.funderAlexander von Humboldt-Stiftungen
dc.contributor.funderDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaften
dc.contributor.funderBritish Society for Neuroendocrinology (BSN), United Kingdomen
dc.date.accessioned2017-06-27T15:22:38Z
dc.date.available2017-06-27T15:22:38Z
dc.date.issued2017-05-22
dc.description.abstractLatitudinal variation in avian life histories falls along a slow-fast pace of life continuum: tropical species produce small clutches, but have a high survival probability, while in temperate species the opposite pattern is found. This study investigated whether differential investment into reproduction and survival of tropical and temperate species is paralleled by differences in the secretion of the vertebrate hormone corticosterone (CORT). Depending on circulating concentrations, CORT can both act as a metabolic (low to medium levels) and a stress hormone (high levels) and, thereby, influence reproductive decisions. Baseline and stress-induced CORT was measured across sequential stages of the breeding season in males and females of closely related taxa of stonechats (Saxicola spp) from a wide distribution area. We compared stonechats from 13 sites, representing Canary Islands, European temperate and East African tropical areas. Stonechats are highly seasonal breeders at all these sites, but vary between tropical and temperate regions with regard to reproductive investment and presumably also survival. Results: In accordance with life-history theory, during parental stages, post-capture (baseline) CORT was overall lower in tropical than in temperate stonechats. However, during mating stages, tropical males had elevated post-capture (baseline) CORT concentrations, which did not differ from those of temperate males. Female and male mates of a pair showed correlated levels of post-capture CORT when sampled after simulated territorial intrusions. In contrast to the hypothesis that species with low reproduction and high annual survival should be more risk-sensitive, tropical stonechats had lower stress-induced CORT concentrations than temperate stonechats. We also found relatively high post-capture (baseline) and stress-induced CORT concentrations, in slow-paced Canary Islands stonechats. Conclusions: Our data support and refine the view that baseline CORT facilitates energetically demanding activities in males and females and reflects investment into reproduction. Low parental workload was associated with lower post-capture (baseline) CORT as expected for a slow pace of life in tropical species. On a finer resolution, however, this tropical-temperate contrast did not generally hold. Post-capture (baseline) CORT was higher during mating stages in particular in tropical males, possibly to support the energetic needs of mate-guarding. Counter to predictions based on life history theory, our data do not confirm the hypothesis that long-lived tropical populations have higher stress-induced CORT concentrations than short-lived temperate populations. Instead, in the predator-rich tropical environments of African stonechats, a dampened stress response during parental stages may increase survival probabilities of young. Overall our data further support an association between life history and baseline CORT, but challenge the role of stress-induced CORT as a mediator of tropical-temperate variation in life history.en
dc.description.sponsorshipDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, German Science foundation (research grant HE3488/5–1)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationApfelbeck, B., Helm, B., Illera, J. C., Mortega, K. G., Smiddy, P. and Evans, N. P. (2017) 'Baseline and stress-induced levels of corticosterone in male and female Afrotropical and European temperate stonechats during breeding', BMC Evolutionary Biology, 17(1), pp. 114. doi: 10.1186/s12862-017-0960-9en
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/s12862-017-0960-9
dc.identifier.endpage114-16en
dc.identifier.issn1471-2148
dc.identifier.issued1en
dc.identifier.journaltitleBMC Evolutionary Biologyen
dc.identifier.startpage114-1en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/4196
dc.identifier.volume17en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherBioMed Centralen
dc.rights© The Authors. 2017. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectLife historyen
dc.subjectCorticosteroneen
dc.subjectTropical-temperateen
dc.subjectSimulated territorial intrusion (STI)en
dc.subjectSeasonalen
dc.titleBaseline and stress-induced levels of corticosterone in male and female Afrotropical and European temperate stonechats during breedingen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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