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Elevation impacts the balance between growth and oxidative stress in coal tits

  • Physiological ecology - Original research
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Abstract

The short favorable period of time available for the growth in seasonal environments could constrain the resources allocation between growth and other life-history traits, and the short-term fitness benefits of increased growth rate may prevail over other functions. Accelerated growth rates have been associated with long-term deleterious consequences (e.g., decreased lifespan), and recently oxidative stress (the imbalance between pro-oxidants generation and antioxidant defenses) has been suggested as a mediator of these effects. Here, we examined the impact of elevation on growth rate and self-maintenance parameters (resting metabolism, oxidative damage, and antioxidant defenses) of coal tit chicks (Periparus ater). We predicted that the shorter favorable season at the higher-elevation site could lead to a reallocation of resources towards growth at the expense of self-maintenance processes. We found that chicks at high elevation grew significantly faster in terms of body mass and body size. Chicks from the high-elevation site presented higher resting metabolism, higher oxidative damage level, but similar antioxidant defenses, compared to low-elevation chicks. Interestingly, the chicks exhibiting the better antioxidant defenses at 7 days were also those with the highest resting metabolic rate, and the chicks that grew at the faster rate within the high-elevation site were those with the highest levels of oxidative damage on DNA. Our study supports the idea that increasing elevation leads to a higher growth rate in coal tit chicks, possibly in response to a shorter favorable season. In accordance with life-history theory, a bigger investment in growth was done at the expense of body maintenance, at least in terms of oxidative stress.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to G. Chagneau and O. Scholly for help with fieldwork, to Antoine Duparc for assistance with the statistical analysis of temperature data, and to the CNRS, The University of Strasbourg, and The CREA for funding. We are especially grateful to two anonymous reviewers and the handling editor for providing interesting and constructive comments on a previous draft of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

    Antoine Stier, Sandrine Zahn, Mathilde Arrivé, François Criscuolo & Sylvie Massemin-Challet

  2. Département d’Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE), CNRS UMR7178, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087, Strasbourg Cedex 2, France

    Antoine Stier, Sandrine Zahn, Mathilde Arrivé, François Criscuolo & Sylvie Massemin-Challet

  3. Centre de Recherche sur les Ecosystèmes d’Altitude (CREA), Observatoire du Mont-Blanc, 67 lacets du Belvédère, 74400, Chamonix, France

    Anne Delestrade

  4. Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, Université de Savoie (UMR 5553), 73376, Le Bourget du Lac, France

    Anne Delestrade

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  1. Antoine Stier
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  2. Anne Delestrade
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  3. Sandrine Zahn
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  4. Mathilde Arrivé
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  5. François Criscuolo
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  6. Sylvie Massemin-Challet
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antoine Stier.

Additional information

Communicated by Oliver P. Love.

F. Criscuolo and S. Massemin-Challet contributed equally to this work.

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Stier, A., Delestrade, A., Zahn, S. et al. Elevation impacts the balance between growth and oxidative stress in coal tits. Oecologia 175, 791–800 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2946-2

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