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Leucocyte profiles and corticosterone in chicks of southern rockhopper penguins

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Abstract

The immune system is essential for health and survival of vertebrates, yet still little is known about the ontogeny of the immune system in wild birds. The southern rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome chrysocome) is a semi-altricial seabird with a long developmental period and reversed hatching asynchrony, favouring the survival of B-chicks. We compared leucocyte counts and baseline corticosterone levels of southern rockhopper penguin chicks under different preconditions such as sex and origin from an A- or B-egg from 4 to 51 days of age. We conducted an experiment to compare leucocyte profiles and baseline corticosterone levels in A- and B-chicks in single-egg clutches as well as in B-chicks from normal two egg-clutches (one A- and one B-egg). None of these treatments influenced leucocyte counts or corticosterone levels, indicating a similar investment in the immune system. Our main finding was an increase of leucocytes/10,000 erythrocytes with age, which was mainly caused by an increase in lymphocyte numbers. This suggests differential investment into acquired immunity at this stage of development. As the granulocyte/lymphocyte (G/L) ratio did not change with age or body condition, G/L ratios seem not to reflect stress caused by poor provisioning of penguin chicks. This was also reinforced by the decrease of plasma corticosterone levels with age. Body condition was negatively correlated with monocyte numbers, suggesting a poorer health status of penguin chicks in poorer body condition. Yet, there was no link between body condition and other leucocyte parameters, indicating that chicks in a good body condition did not additionally invest into their immune system.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the New Island Conservation Trust for permission to work on the island. We thank Ian, Maria and Georgina Strange, and Dan Birch for their support during the field season. Thanks also to Helen Otley, Falkland Islands Government and British Antarctic Survey for their logistic help. We greatly appreciate the skilful assistance in corticosterone assays of Colette Trouvé, Stéphanie Dano, Adeline Berger and André Lacroix. Our study was funded by a grant provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (Qu 148/1-ff). All work was approved by the Falkland Islands Government (Environmental Planning Office). We would like to thank Jamie Cornelius and three anonymous referees for helpful comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Vogelwarte Radolfzell, Schlossallee 2, 78315, Radolfzell, Germany

    Nina Dehnhard, Maud Poisbleau, Laurent Demongin, Hendrika J. van Noordwijk & Petra Quillfeldt

  2. Department of Biology-Ethology, University of Antwerp, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Antwerp (Wilrijk), Belgium

    Maud Poisbleau & Laurent Demongin

  3. Centre d’Études Biologiques de Chizé, CNRS UPR 1934, 79360, Beauvoir-sur-Niort, France

    Olivier Chastel

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  1. Nina Dehnhard
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  2. Maud Poisbleau
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  3. Laurent Demongin
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  4. Olivier Chastel
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  5. Hendrika J. van Noordwijk
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  6. Petra Quillfeldt
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Correspondence to Nina Dehnhard.

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Communicated by G. Heldmaier.

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Dehnhard, N., Poisbleau, M., Demongin, L. et al. Leucocyte profiles and corticosterone in chicks of southern rockhopper penguins. J Comp Physiol B 181, 83–90 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-010-0508-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-010-0508-4

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