Extra costs for a very expensive travel: Behavioral changes associated with an immunological challenge in a long-distance migratory bird
5:45 a 6:00 pm, Centro de Estudios Científicos
Pablo Oyarzun Andrade 1,2 | Tamara Tadich3 | Juan G. Navedo4 | Josefina Gutiérrez1,2 | Consuelo Martorell1 | Jonathan Vergara1,2 | Claudio Verdugo1
1.- Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Lab, Instituto de Patología Animal, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile. 2.- Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias mención Ecología y Evolución, Escuela de Graduados, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile. 3.-Instituto de Ciencia Animal, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile; 4.- Bird Ecology Lab, Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile.
Ponente: Pablo Oyarzun Andrade, p.oyarzun.andrade@gmail.com
Migratory birds have largely been claimed as responsible of the spread of highly virulent pathogens. However, this claim rest under a poorly supported assumption: infected hosts remain asymptomatic and migrate long distances unhampered. Migration is one of the most physiological and energetically demanding activities in the animal world, so migrants must perfectly balance any further costs, such as a pathogen infection and the immune response, to fulfill such endeavor. Through an experimental approach, we evaluated the behavioral changes associated with the exposure to a novel viral antigen, a likely scenario to happen during migration, in a trans-hemispheric migratory shorebird. We evaluated nine characteristics of sickness behavior in five categories: movement (locomotor activity), resting, nutritional (foraging), cleaning (grooming), and social, in 11,897 film hours of sixteen individuals of Hudsonian godwits, Limosa haemastica, (8 challenged and 8 controls) four times a day for three months. Individuals were either challenged with a killed swine influenza vaccine or a sham injection, and one month later were boosted with a second challenge. We found that the immunological challenge significantly increased the locomotor activity (P>0.001) compared with the control group, mainly 24 hrs. after first and second challenges. Thus, migratory individuals facing novel antigens throughout the migration flyway have extra energy costs associated with more activity, such as flapping, flights, and walks, in detriment of resting, an essential activity needed to optimize limited resources during the fattening for a long-distance migration. Fondecyt N° 1191769. ANID scholarships N° 21212004, 21201700, 21180753.