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The cost of an immune response: vaccination reduces parental effort

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Author

Summary, in English

A fundamental assumption of theories of the ecology and evolution of inducible defences is that protective responses to attacks by parasites or predators should not only have benefits, but also costs. The vertebrate immune system is by far the best studied example of an inducible defence, yet little is known about the costs of an immune response, especially in natural populations. To test: if an immune response per se is costly, we induced an antibody response in female blue tits, Parus caeruleus, by immunising them with human diphtheria-tetanus vaccine, and compared their nestling-feeding rate with that of saline-injected controls. We found that vaccinated females reduced their nestling feeding rate, thus demonstrating a cost of the immune response in the currency of parental effort.

Publishing year

2000

Language

English

Pages

382-386

Publication/Series

Ecology Letters

Volume

3

Issue

5

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Status

Published

Project

  • Immunoecology

Research group

  • Molecular Ecology and Evolution Lab
  • Life History and Functional Ecology

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1461-023X