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Carotenoid-based bill colour is an integrative signal of multiple parasite infection in blackbird

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Abstract

In the study of parasite-mediated sexual selection, there has been controversial evidence for the prediction that brighter males should have fewer parasites. Most of these studies have focused on one parasite species. Our aim was to investigate the expression of carotenoid-based coloured signals in relation to patterns of multiple parasite infections, to determine whether colour reflects parasite load of all parasite species, or whether different relationships might be found when looking at each parasite species independently. We investigated the relationship between bill colour, body mass and plasma carotenoids and parasite load (feather chewing lice, blood parasite Plasmodium sp., intestinal parasites cestodes and coccidia) in the blackbird (Turdus merula). Bill colour on its own appeared to be a poor predictor of parasite load when investigating its relationships with individual parasite species. Variation in parasite intensities at the community level was summarised using principal component analysis to derive synthetic indexes of relative parasite species abundance and absolute parasite load. The relative abundance of parasite species was strongly related to bill colour, plasma carotenoid levels and body mass: birds with relatively more cestodes and chewing lice and relatively less Plasmodium and coccidia had a more colourful bill, circulated more carotenoids and were heavier. These results suggest that bill colour more accurately reflects the relative intensities of parasite infection, rather than one-by-one relationships with parasites or absolute parasite burden. Investigating patterns of multiple parasite infection would thus improve our understanding of the information conveyed by coloured signals on parasite load.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Yannick Moret and anonymous referees for helpful comments on the manuscript. We are particularly grateful to Monique Prost for help with identification of Phthiraptera. We thank the city of Dijon for authorizations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Equipe Ecologie Evolutive, UMR 5561 Biogéosciences, Université de Bourgogne, 6 Bd Gabriel, 21000, Dijon, France

    Clotilde Biard, Nicolas Saulnier, Maria Gaillard & Jérôme Moreau

  2. UMR 7625 Ecologie and Evolution, Université Pierre et Marie Curie UPMC, CNRS, ENS, AgroParisTech, 7 quai Saint Bernard (case 237), 75252, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Clotilde Biard

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  1. Clotilde Biard
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  2. Nicolas Saulnier
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  3. Maria Gaillard
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  4. Jérôme Moreau
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Correspondence to Jérôme Moreau.

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Biard, C., Saulnier, N., Gaillard, M. et al. Carotenoid-based bill colour is an integrative signal of multiple parasite infection in blackbird. Naturwissenschaften 97, 987–995 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0716-5

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