Valdebenito Phd Dissertation

University of Bath PHD Causes of sex-different mortalities in birds: pathogens and immunocompetence Valdebenito, José O. Award date: 2021 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 Causes of sex-different mortalities in birds: pathogens and immunocompetence José O. Valdebenito A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath Milner Centre for Evolution Department of Biology and Biochemistry September 2020 Copyright notice Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. to my parents, María and José iii Cádiz Bay, Spain 2019 – José O. Valdebenito “Buy the ticket, take the ride…” Hunter S. Thompson iv Contents Contents .............................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... vi Name and affiliation of co-authors that contributed to this dissertation ...................................................... vii Summary ............................................................................................................................................ ix Chapter 1 | Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 | Association of insularity and body condition to cloacal bacteria prevalence in a small shorebird ................................................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 3 | Mortality cost of sex-specific parasitism in wild bird populations .......................... 30 Chapter 4 | Sex-specific immune function in shorebirds .............................................................. 52 Chapter 5 | Sex-specific brain immune gene expression in a small shorebird ........................... 64 Chapter 6 | Seasonal variation in sex-specific immunity in wild birds ....................................... 80 Chapter 7 | Discussion.................................................................................................................... 104 Appendix 1 | Mate fidelity in a polygamous shorebird, the snowy plover (Charadrius nivosus) ... 113 Appendix 2 | Successful breeding predicts divorce in plovers ........................................................ 114 Appendix 3 | Breeding ecology of the Cream-coloured Courser in Cape Verde ............................. 115 Appendix 4 | Report on beak abnormalities of some birds of Patagonia ......................................... 116 Appendix 5 | Gastro-intestinal microbiota of two high altitude bird populations............................ 117 Appendix 6 | Parasites of the Shiny Cowbird, Molothrus bonariensis, and the Austral Blackbird, Curaeus curaeus, (Passeriformes: Icteridae) in Chile ..................................................................... 130 Appendix 7 | Gastrointestinal and ectoparasites of plumbeous rail, Pardirallus sanguinolentus (Aves: Rallidae) in Central Chile ..................................................................................................... 131 Appendix 8 | Gastrointestinal and external parasitism in the Magellanic Horned Owl Bubo magellanicus (Strigiformes: Strigidae) in Chile .............................................................................. 132 v Acknowledgements There are many beings whom, in one way or another, have helped in consummating this dissertation. To all of them I express my most sincere gratitude and I hope I will not leave anyone unmentioned. I found support coming to me in different manners. For example, there is direct help from people when getting feedback while writing a section. But the peace and satisfaction you get from a good cup of coffee at a nice café it’s just as remarkable. Tangible support: Firstly, I must thank my supervisors, Prof Tamás Székely and Dr Jordi Figuerola. Both very different in personality and style, but equally supportive. My good friend, Naerhulan. I believe that I was tremendously lucky to have started my PhD having a colleague like Nar. It made the whole process much more bearable. My buddies at the Department: Mauro Moreno, Evangelos Mourkas, Stephen Moss, Benjamín Padilla, and yeah why not, Conrad van den Ende. Plenty of drinks and memorable stories with these guys. I also thank Ana María Mora, Alazne Díez-Fernández, Uziel González, Vojtech Kubelka, Fanni Takács, Helen Haste, Jennifer McDowall, Kathryn Maher, Araxi Urrutia, Susana Ávila, Mili Bácenas, Alejandro González-Voyer, Daniel Galindo and Terra Peninsular, Luke Eberhart-Phillips, Josué Martínez-de la Puente, Cristina Carmona, and Sergio Ancona, for helping me in various ways. Intangible support: I would like to thank a number of figures that I have not met personally but, through their inspired work in their respective fields, have sparked much motivation and drive in moments of sheer laziness: Anders P. Møller, Nick Davies, Dennis Hasselquist, Allan Turin, John Nash, Liam Revell, Carl Linnaeus, Casey Neistat, Giovanni Ignazio Molina. Finally, of course I have to mention cycling and bicycles. A day out on a bike … it just doesn’t get any better than that! vi Name and affiliation of co-authors that contributed to this dissertation Macarena Castro, Dr Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina, Facultad de Ciencias del Mar y Ambientales, University of Cádiz, Puerto Real, Spain Árpád Dobolyi, Prof Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary Götz Eichhorn, Dr Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, the Netherlands Jordi Figuerola, Dr Department of Wetland Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain Naerhulan Halimubieke Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom Arne Hegemann, Dr Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Qin Huang Department of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China Ádám Z. Lendvai, Dr Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary András Liker, Prof Department of Limnology, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary Yang Liu, Dr Department of Ecology and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China Kathryn H. Maher, Dr Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom Josué Martínez-de la Puente, Dr Department of Wetland Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain Alejandro Pérez-Hurtado, Dr Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina, Facultad de Ciencias del Mar y Ambientales, University of Cádiz, Puerto Real, Spain Pinjia Que, Dr Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Sciences and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Julia Schroeder, Dr vii Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, United Kingdom Tamás Székely, Prof Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom Gustavo Tejera Canary Islands’ Ornithology and Natural History Group (GOHNIC), Buenavista del Norte, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain Araxi O. Urrutia, Dr Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom Larry J. Young, Prof Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA Gergely Zachar, Dr Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary Zhengwang Zhang, Prof Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Sciences and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China viii Summary Males and females often exhibit different behaviour in reproduction (termed sex roles), which is believed to have driven sex differences in many aspects of the animals’ biology, such as morphology and physiology. A central consequence of this divergence in behaviour are sex differences in mortality that, despite being widespread across animals, often their causes are unknown or ignored. Birds are charismatic

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