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Habitat dependent effects of experimental immune challenge on lizard anti-predator responses

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Abstract

Lizards often respond to predators by hiding in sunless refuges, but this eliminates opportunities for thermoregulatory basking. Hiding can therefore lower body condition. Furthermore, in ectotherms basking is important to induce fever and activate an immune response. A potential trade-off therefore exists between lowering predation risk and elevating body temperature to fight infection. Such a trade-off could be habitat dependent if habitats differ in the relative risk of predation versus that of acquiring or countering an infection. Here we take an experimental approach to test whether lizard basking behavior is affected by a trade-off between predator avoidance and fighting an infection. We quantified the anti-predator behavior of male lizards (Podarcis liolepis) both before and after they were immune challenged (injected with LPS) or not (injected with PBS control). To test the generality of any trade-off, we tested lizards from both an urban and a natural habitat. We found that males spent less time hiding following a simulated predator attack after they had been immune challenged than before, but this decline was only significant for males from the natural habitat. We also tested whether morphological traits, body condition, and immune response level explained variation in male hiding time. In the natural habitat, but not in the urban habitat, males with relatively small heads hid for significantly longer. In conclusion, we show that lizard anti-predator behavior is affected by an immune challenge. Habitat differences in the factors that predict hiding time offers potential insights into why this might be the case.

Significance statement

There is a potential trade-off for ectotherms between remaining in a place protected from predators and countering an immune challenge. This is because hiding in sunless refuges eliminates opportunities for thermoregulatory basking that induce a fever. The optimal response to this trade-off might change depending on the habitat. Here, we compare the hiding behavior of males from natural and urban habitat following an experimental immune challenge. We found that the hiding time of immune-challenged males decreased but only for those from the natural habitat.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Michael Jennions and two reviewers for their invaluable help improving the manuscript, Ion Garin-Barrio for field assistance, José Martín for helpful comments, and Aranzadi Society of Sciences for use of their facilities. The study was performed under license from the Gipuzkoa Administration. This work was supported by Basque Government (Saitotek program), Donostia city council, and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture with a pre-doctoral grant to M. I-C (grant number FPU12/04148).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    Maider Iglesias-Carrasco

  2. Departamento de Herpetología, Sociedad de Ciencias Aranzadi, Alto de Zorroaga, 1, 20014, Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain

    Maider Iglesias-Carrasco & Carlos Cabido

  3. Division of Evolution, Ecology and Genetics. Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Megan L. Head

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  1. Maider Iglesias-Carrasco
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Correspondence to Maider Iglesias-Carrasco.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All capture and handling of lizards complied with the contemporary laws regulating the treatment of animals in Spain and was performed under license from the Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa Administrations (numbers 1695 and 2222).

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Communicated by S. J. Downes

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Iglesias-Carrasco, M., Head, M.L. & Cabido, C. Habitat dependent effects of experimental immune challenge on lizard anti-predator responses. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 70, 1931–1939 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-016-2199-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-016-2199-7

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