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Yolk vitamin E positively affects prenatal growth but not oxidative status in yellow-legged gull embryos.

ABSTRACT: Parental effects occur whenever the phenotype of parents or the environment that they experience influences the phenotype and fitness of their offspring. In birds, parental effects are often mediated by the size and biochemical quality of the eggs in terms of maternally transferred components. Exogenous antioxidants are key egg components that accomplish crucial physiological functions during early life. Among these, vitamin E plays a vital role during prenatal development when the intense metabolism accompanying rapid embryo growth results in overproduction of pro-oxidant molecules. Studies of captive birds have demonstrated the positive effect of vitamin E supplementation on diverse phenotypic traits of hatchling and adult individuals, but its effects on embryo phenotype has never been investigated neither in captivity nor under a natural selection regime. In the present study, we experimentally tested the effect of the in ovo supplementation of vitamin E on morphological traits and oxidative status of yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) embryos. The supplementation of vitamin E promoted somatic growth in embryos soon before hatching, but did not affect their oxidative status. Our results suggest that maternally transferred vitamin E concentrations are optimized to prevent imbalances of oxidative status and the consequent raise of oxidative damage in yellow-legged gull embryos during prenatal development.

SUBMITTER: Parolini M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6007762 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Yolk vitamin E positively affects prenatal growth but not oxidative status in yellow-legged gull embryos.

Parolini Marco M Possenti Cristina Daniela CD Karadas Filiz F Colombo Graziano G Romano Maria M Caprioli Manuela M Dalle-Donne Isabella I Rubolini Diego D Milzani Aldo A Saino Nicola N

Current zoology 20170523 3

Parental effects occur whenever the phenotype of parents or the environment that they experience influences the phenotype and fitness of their offspring. In birds, parental effects are often mediated by the size and biochemical quality of the eggs in terms of maternally transferred components. Exogenous antioxidants are key egg components that accomplish crucial physiological functions during early life. Among these, vitamin E plays a vital role during prenatal development when the intense metab ...[more]

PMID: 30402069

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Project description:BackgroundAs for other life history traits, variation occurs in movement patterns with important impacts on population demography and community interactions. Individuals can show variation in the extent of seasonal movement (or migration) or can change migratory routes among years. Internal factors, such as age or body condition, may strongly influence changes in movement patterns. Indeed, young individuals often tend to move across larger spatial scales compared to adults, but relatively few studies have investigated the proximate and ultimate factors driving such variation. This is particularly the case for seabirds in which the sub-adult period is long and difficult to follow. Here, we examine migration variation and the factors that affect it in a common Mediterranean seabird, the Yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis).MethodsThe data include the encounter histories of 5158 birds marked as fledglings between 1999 and 2004 at 14 different colonies in southern France and resighted over 10 years. Using a multi-event mark-recapture modeling framework, we use these data to estimate the probability of movement and survival, taking into account recapture heterogeneity and age.ResultsIn accordance with previous studies, we find that young individuals have greater mobility than older individuals. However, the spatial extent of juvenile movements depends on natal colony location, with a strong difference in the proportion of sedentary individuals among colonies less than 50 km apart. Colony quality or local population dynamics may explain these differences. Indeed, young birds from colonies with strong juvenile survival probabilities (~ 0.75) appear to be more sedentary than those from colonies with low survival probabilities (~ 0.36).ConclusionsThis study shows the importance of studying individuals of different ages and from different colonies when trying to understand seabird movement strategies. Local breeding success and the availability of food resources may explain part of the among colony differences we observe and require explicit testing. We discuss our results with respect to the feedback loop that may occur between breeding success and mobility, and its potential implications for population demography and the dissemination of avian disease at different spatial scales.

Dataset Information

Yolk vitamin E positively affects prenatal growth but not oxidative status in yellow-legged gull embryos.

Publications

Yolk vitamin E positively affects prenatal growth but not oxidative status in yellow-legged gull embryos.

Similar Datasets

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