Abstract
Sexual ornaments might reliably indicate the ability to cope with parasites and diseases, and a better ability to mount a primary inflammatory response to a novel challenge. Carotenoid-based ornaments are amongst the commonest sexual signals of birds and often influence mate choice. Because carotenoids are immuno-stimulants, signallers may trade-off allocating these to ornamental colouration or using them for immune responses, so carotenoid-based ornaments might be particularly useful as honest indicators of immuno-compentence. Tetraonid birds, such as the red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus, exhibit supra-orbital yellow–red combs, a conspicuous ornament which functions in intra- and inter-sexual selection. The colour of combs is due to epidermal pigmentation by carotenoids, while their size is testosterone-dependent. In this study, I investigated whether comb characteristics, and in particular, comb colour, indicated immuno-competence in free-living male red grouse. I assessed T-cell-mediated immunity using a standardised challenge with phytohaemagglutinin. Red grouse combs reflect in the red and in the ultraviolet spectrum of light, which is not visible to humans but that grouse most likely see, so I measured comb colour across the whole bird visible spectrum (300–700 nm) using a reflectance spectrometer. I found that males with bigger and redder combs, but with less ultraviolet reflectance, had greater T-cell-mediated immune response. Comb colour predicted T-cell-mediated immune response better than comb size, indicating that the carotenoid-based colouration of this ornament might reliably signal this aspect of male quality.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the owner and gamekeepers of the Edinglassie estate (Aberdeenshire, north-east Scotland) for allowing me to conduct this work on their grouse moors. Special thanks are due to Derek Calder (headkeeper) for his help with organising the work. I also thank F. Leckie and J. Irvine for their help with the fieldwork, M. Evans for providing advice and material for the immune challenges and J. Martinez-Padilla and L. Perez-Rodriguez for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. All procedures were conducted under a UK Home Office licence (PPL 80/1437). I was supported by a National Environmental Research Council (NERC) fellowship and a Grant from the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia, Spain (CGL 2006-11823).
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Mougeot, F. Ornamental comb colour predicts T-cell-mediated immunity in male red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus . Naturwissenschaften 95, 125–132 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-007-0303-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-007-0303-6