Female canaries produce eggs with greater amounts of testosterone when exposed to preferred male song

Gil, Diego; Leboucher, Gérard; Lacroix, André; Cue, R.I.; Kreutzer, Michel

doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2003.08.005

Cited by 148 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…In addition, it has been revealed that the attractiveness of mates affects the concentration of egg yolk components thought to contribute to the early physical development of offspring, such as testosterone (Gil et al, 1999;Gil et al, 2004; but see Mazuc et al, 2003;Michl et al, 2005) and immune factors (Saino et al, 2002b). These findings confirm that females invest more in reproduction when the prospective fitness return is high.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…However, their results are only partially consistent with our present findings in that female reproductive investment was affected by some aspects of song performance, that is, non-learning-based traits (song strophe length in blue tits: Dreiss et al, 2006; song rate and duration in zebra finches: Balzer & Williams, 1998; singing interaction between male canaries: Garcia-Fernandez et al, 2010), but not by repertoire size, a learning-based trait (great reed warblers: Westerdahl et al, 1997; song sparrows: Potvin & MacDougall-Shackleton, 2010). Exceptionally, however, in canaries, it has been reported that egg mass and the concentration of yolk testosterone increased when females were exposed to recordings of so-called "sexy syllables", which are acquired through vocal learning (Gil et al, 2004;Leitner et al, 2006; but see Marshall et al, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Differential allocation in relation to mate song quality in the Bengalese finch

Soma

Okanoya

2013

Behav

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Postmating sexual selection plays an important part in the evolution of secondary sexual characters. Based on differential allocation theory that predicts biased reproductive investment of females depending on the attractiveness of mates, a number of previous studies have shown that egg production is related in various ways to ornamental sexual traits of males, but evidence for behavioral sexual traits is less abundant. In this study we examine such maternal effects in relation to birdsong.Because the Bengalese finch is a monomorphic songbird, courtship song serves a key role in mate choice. To take into account individual female differences in egg production performance, we sequentially paired naïve, captive, female Bengalese finches to two different males, and investigated if their reproductive investment (clutch size, egg mass and hatchling sex ratio) was related to the song traits of their mates. We found that clutch size and egg mass were highly repeatable within individual females while sex ratio was not. Despite the inflexibility of egg mass within each female, egg mass increased when females were mated to males with longer songs. In addition, we found a non-significant weak tendency toward male-biased sex ratio in relation to longer song duration of mates. Our findings suggest that females mated to better mates adjusted their reproductive investment by producing heavier eggs and possibly offspring of the more costly sex.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential allocation in relation to mate song quality in the Bengalese finch

Soma

Okanoya

2013

Behav

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“…These opposing costs and benefits indicate that the optimal allocation of maternal yolk androgens into the eggs will depend on current or future environmental or social conditions. Indeed, it is well documented that factors such as breeding density (Schwabl 1997;Reed and Vleck 2001;Groothuis and Schwabl 2002;Mazuc et al 2003;Pilz and Smith 2004), timing of breeding (Schwabl 1996;Bowden et al 2000;Pilz et al 2003;Müller et al 2004), food abundance (Verboven et al 2003;Gasparini et al 2007;Warner et al 2007), partner attractiveness (Gil et al 1999(Gil et al , 2004Tanvez et al 2004;Loyau et al 2007;Kingma et al 2008), or parasitism (Tschirren et al 2004) influence maternal yolk androgen deposition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritable Variation in Maternal Yolk Hormone Transfer in a Wild Bird Population

Tschirren¹,

Sendecka²,

Groothuis³

et al. 2009

The American Naturalist

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Differential reproductive investment by the mother can critically influence offspring development and phenotype, and strong selection is therefore expected to act on such maternal effects. Although a genetic basis is a prerequisite for phenotypic traits to respond to selection and thus to evolve, we still know very little about the extent of heritable variation in maternal effects in natural populations. Here, we present the first estimates of intrafemale repeatability across breeding seasons and estimates of heritability of hormonemediated maternal effects in a wild population of collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis). We found that maternal yolk testosterone (T) concentrations, yolk mass, and egg mass were moderately to highly repeatable within females across years, whereas intrafemale consistency of maternal yolk androstenedione (A4) deposition was low yet statistically significant. Furthermore, maternal yolk T transfer, yolk mass, and egg mass were significantly heritable, whereas yolk A4 transfer was not. These results strongly suggest that two major maternal yolk androgens are differentially regulated by genes and the environment. Selection on heritable variation in maternal yolk T deposition has the potential to shape the rate and direction of phenotypic change in offspring traits and can thereby accelerate or impede the response to selection in natural populations.

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“…85067, Sigma-Aldrich, Steinheim, Germany). We chose this combination of hormones because they appear together in the yolk (Schwabl 1993) and their concentrations are positively correlated (Groothuis and Schwabl 2002;Gil et al 2004;Ruuskanen et al 2009). Control eggs received an injection of sesame oil only (10 mL).…”

Section: Egg Injectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-Specific Effects of High Yolk Androgen Levels on Constitutive and Cell-Mediated Immune Responses in Nestlings of an Altricial Passerine

Muriel

Pérez‐Rodríguez

Ortiz‐Santaliestra

et al. 2017

Physiological and Biochemical Zoology

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Avian embryos are exposed to yolk androgens that are incorporated into the egg by the ovulating female. These steroids can affect several aspects of embryo development, often resulting in increases in overall size or the speed of growth of different traits. However, several studies suggest that they also entail immune costs to the offspring. In this study, we explored whether variation in yolk androgen concentration affected several measures of the constitutive and cell-mediated immune axes in the spotless starling (Sturnus unicolor). Using a within-brood design, we injected different doses of androgens (testosterone and androstenedione) into the eggs. Our study showed that experimentally increased yolk androgens led to sex-specific immunosuppression in both the innate and adaptive axes of the immune system. Both cell-mediated immune response (CMI) and lysozyme activity decreased with increasing androgen levels injected into the egg in the case of male nestlings, whereas there were no effects on females. The effects that we found were always linear: no quadratic or threshold patterns were detected. We found no effects of the experimental treatment in hemolysis or agglutination capacity, but these measures were negatively correlated with CMI, suggesting negative correlation among different branches of the immune system. Blood (trypanosomes and hemosporidians) and intestinal (coccidia) parasites were not affected by the experimental increase of yolk androgen levels. Our results show that in our study species yolk androgens induce immunosuppression in some axes of the male nestling immune system. Further studies should analyze the proximate causes for these contrasting effects in different axes of the immune system and the reason for the differential impact on males and females.

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Female canaries produce eggs with greater amounts of testosterone when exposed to preferred male song

Cited by 148 publications

References 36 publications

Differential allocation in relation to mate song quality in the Bengalese finch

Differential allocation in relation to mate song quality in the Bengalese finch

Heritable Variation in Maternal Yolk Hormone Transfer in a Wild Bird Population

Sex-Specific Effects of High Yolk Androgen Levels on Constitutive and Cell-Mediated Immune Responses in Nestlings of an Altricial Passerine

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