Abstract
Urban habitats are described as having an overall negative influence on many fitness-related traits in several bird species, but a vital function such as immunity remains poorly studied. The immune response is strongly linked to individual condition, which partly depends on resource availability and the parasitic context that often differ between urban and natural habitats. A difference between the immunity of populations dwelling in urban areas and populations from more natural habitats can, therefore, be hypothesized. We conducted a 2-year experimental study on great tits (Parus major) in urban and forest areas. We stimulated the constitutive immunity of nestlings and assessed both the inflammatory response by measuring the plasma levels of haptoglobin, an inflammatory marker, and its activation cost through the loss of body mass. In addition, we checked the nestlings for ectoparasites and assessed haemosporidian prevalence in adults. Nestlings from urban sites produced relatively less haptoglobin and lost more body mass than those from forest sites, which suggests that the activation of constitutive immunity is more costly for birds living in urban sites than for those living in the forest. We detected no ectoparasite in birds in both habitats. However, urban adults showed lower haemosporidian prevalence than forest ones, suggesting a reduced exposure to these parasites and their vectors in towns. Overall, our study provides evidence for an immune difference between urban and forest populations. Because immunity is crucial for organism fitness, it is of prime interest to identify causes and processes at the origin of this difference.
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Acknowledgments
The financial support for this work was provided by the Regional Council of Burgundy and the Center for Research and Higher Education. The Ville de Dijon, de Besançon and d’Auxonne provided permissions to instal nest boxes. The study site in Franche-Comté belongs to the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network ‘‘Zone Atelier Arc Jurassien’’ (http://zaaj.univ-fcomte.fr/). We thank S. Berthe and A.-S. Prudent for their help with the fieldwork and G. Sorci, P. Christe, A. Grégoire and S. Cornet for their comments on the experimental protocols and the results. We are grateful to M. Gallipaud for his comments on the manuscript and his help with the statistical analyses as well as I. Krams (Editorial Board) and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments, which helped us improve this manuscript. This study conforms to the legal requirements of France. The experiment has received the agreement of the Animal Care and Ethical Committee of the Université de Bourgogne, Dijon (protocol # 8112) and of the Préfectures de la Côte d’Or, du Doubs et du Jura (Arrêté # 448).
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JB, BF and RS conceived and designed the experiments. JB analysed the data. JB, BF and RS wrote the manuscript; all authors performed the experiments in the field.
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Communicated by Hannu J. Ylonen.
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Bailly, J., Scheifler, R., Belvalette, M. et al. Negative impact of urban habitat on immunity in the great tit Parus major . Oecologia 182, 1053–1062 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3730-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3730-2