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Acta Biologica Hungarica

, Volume 61, Issue 3, pp 237–249 | Cite as

Seasonal Changes in Hypothalamic Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone-I Immunoreactivity in Relation With Testicular Volume in Adult Male Free-Living European Starlings (Sturnus Vulgaris)

  • O. PintérEmail author
  • P. Péczel
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Birds from the temperate and cold zones show annual sexual activity accompanied by gonadal changes and fuctuation in their brain gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) levels. However, most of the studies were done on captive birds where the constant environment can profoundly modify periodical changes. Therefore our aim was to reveal annual variations of hypothalamic and gonadal changes in male, free-living European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) captured directly from their natural environment. We analyzed hypothalamic GnRH-I immunoreactivity and testes volume. Four key time points of the active reproductive cycle and the photorefractory phase were studied. GnRH-I immunoreactivity was analyzed in the preoptic area (POA) and the median eminence (ME). Photorefractory birds (August) with regressed gonads had the lowest level of GnRH-I immunoreactivity compared to other birds from the active reproductive phases. These results suggest that parallel with the gonadal volume GnRH-I undergoes seasonal changes in adult male free-living European starlings.

Keywords

European starling seasonal reproduction GnRH-I testes immunohistochemistry 

Abbrevations

ABC

avidin-biotin complex

FSH

follicle-stimulating hormone

GnRH

gonadotropin-releasing hormone

GnRH-ir

GnRH immunoreactivity

KPBS

potassium-phosphate buffer

L:D

light/dark hours per day

LH

luteinizing hormone

ME

median eminence

POA

preoptic area

TrSM

tractus septomesenchephalicus

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© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 2010

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Laboratory of Molecular Neuroendocrinogy, Institute of Experimental MedicineHungarian Academy of SciencesBudapestHungary
  2. 2.Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, Institute of Animal HusbandrySzent István UniversityGödöllőHungary

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