Evol Ecol Res 13: 269-282 (2011)     Full PDF if your library subscribes.

Effects of immune challenge and supernormal clutch production on egg quality in the red-legged partridge

Marco Cucco, Marco Grenna, Irene Pellegrino and Giorgio Malacarne

Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Ambiente e della Vita, University of Piemonte Orientale, Alessandria, Italy

Correspondence: M. Cucco, University of Piemonte Orientale, DiSAV, via Michel 11, 15121 Alessandria, Italy.
e-mail: cucco@unipmn.it

ABSTRACT

Background: Because maintenance of the immune system is thought to be resource-limited, trade-offs between immune function, body condition, and reproductive allocation are expected.

Questions: Do females confronted with the simultaneous challenges of immune stimulation and supernormal egg production face a trade-off in terms of self-maintenance (body mass and blood parameters) and/or egg quality?

Organism: Red-legged partridge, Alectoris rufa, a precocial bird species with a huge investment in eggs.

Methods: We challenged the immune systems of females, before egg laying, with a novel antigen (Newcastle Disease virus vaccine, NDV). We also removed eggs as they were laid, so as to induce supernormal egg production.

Conclusion: Compared with the other eggs, the last-laid eggs of hens with supernormal production were smaller, contained less yolk, had a lighter shell, and contained albumen with less lysozyme. However, the immune challenge had no effect on female condition or egg quality. Thus we found no evidence of a trade-off between immune function, body condition, and reproductive allocation.

Keywords: Alectoris rufa, egg quality, laying order, maternal investment, NDV vaccine challenge, supernormal clutch.

DOWNLOAD A FREE, FULL PDF COPY
IF you are connected using the IP of a subscribing institution (library, laboratory, etc.)
or through its VPN.

 

        © 2011 Marco Cucco. All EER articles are copyrighted by their authors. All authors endorse, permit and license Evolutionary Ecology Ltd. to grant its subscribing institutions/libraries the copying privileges specified below without additional consideration or payment to them or to Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. These endorsements, in writing, are on file in the office of Evolutionary Ecology, Ltd. Consult authors for permission to use any portion of their work in derivative works, compilations or to distribute their work in any commercial manner.

       Subscribing institutions/libraries may grant individuals the privilege of making a single copy of an EER article for non-commercial educational or non-commercial research purposes. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also use articles for non-commercial educational purposes by making any number of copies for course packs or course reserve collections. Subscribing institutions/libraries may also loan single copies of articles to non-commercial libraries for educational purposes.

       All copies of abstracts and articles must preserve their copyright notice without modification.