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Body temperature changes during simulated bacterial infection in a songbird: fever at night and hypothermia during the day

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Author

Summary, in English

Although fever (a closely regulated increase in body temperature in response to infection) typically is beneficial, it is energetically costly and may induce detrimentally high body temperatures. This can increase the susceptibility to energetic bottlenecks and risks of overheating in some organisms. Accordingly, it could be particularly interesting to study fever in small birds, which have comparatively high metabolic rates and high, variable body temperatures. We therefore investigated two aspects of fever and other sickness behaviours (circadian variation, dose dependence) in a small songbird, the zebra finch. We injected lipopolysaccharide (LPS) at the beginning of either the day or the night, and subsequently monitored body temperature, body mass change and food intake for the duration of the response. We found pronounced circadian variation in the body temperature response to LPS injection, manifested by (dose-dependent) hypothermia during the day but fever at night. This resulted in body temperature during the peak response being relatively similar during the day and night. Day-to-night differences might be explained in the context of circadian variation in body temperature: songbirds have a high daytime body temperature that is augmented by substantial heat production peaks during activity. This might require a trade-off between the benefit of fever and the risk of overheating. In contrast, at night, when body temperature is typically lower and less variable, fever can be used to mitigate infection. We suggest that the change in body temperature during infection in small songbirds is context dependent and regulated to promote survival according to individual demands at the time of infection.

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

2961-2969

Publication/Series

Journal of Experimental Biology

Volume

218

Issue

18

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

The Company of Biologists Ltd

Topic

  • Evolutionary Biology

Keywords

  • LPS
  • fever
  • ecophysiology
  • acute-phase response
  • heterothermy

Status

Published

Project

  • Immunoecology

Research group

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

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1477-9145