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Do night-active birds lack daily melatonin rhythms? A case study comparing a diurnal and a nocturnal-foraging gull species

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Abstract

Plasma melatonin concentrations in most animals investigated so far increase at night regardless of whether individuals are day or night active. Nevertheless, daily melatonin amplitudes are often seasonally adjusted to ecological conditions, with birds that breed at high latitudes and migrate during the night showing lower daily amplitudes. Here we investigate whether nocturnal seabirds, gulls that feed at night, also show a low melatonin amplitude because they have to be active predominantly during the night but also intermittently during the day. We sampled free-living nocturnal-foraging swallow-tailed gulls (Creagrus furcatus) on two Galapagos islands every ~4 h and compared their plasma melatonin concentrations with those of related black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus) sampled in the Netherlands. Like most seabirds, the black-headed gulls showed generally low melatonin concentrations, but clear diel cycles. The swallow-tailed gulls, on the other hand, had similarly low absolute melatonin concentrations, but no detectable diel changes. Despite problems inherent in comparisons between two species and field/lab setups, our data lend support to the hypothesis that the lack of a diel melatonin rhythm allows animals to be active at any time.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Franz Kümmeth for assistance in the field, Michaela Hau for discussions and use of her laboratory, and David Anderson for use of his field site. We also thank the Galápagos National Park Service, the Charles Darwin Research Station, and TAME Airline for enabling this work. This is a contribution of the Charles-Darwin-Foundation and was supported by the National Science Foundation, Princeton University and the Max Planck Society.

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Author notes

  1. Corine M. Eising

    Present address: Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, Rondebosch, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544-1003, USA

    Martin Wikelski & Elisa M. Tarlow

  2. Department of Animal Behavior, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 149750, AA Haren, NL, The Netherlands

    Corine M. Eising & Ton G.G. Groothuis

  3. Max Planck Research Center for Ornithology, Von der Tannstr. 7, 82346, Andechs, Germany

    Ebo Gwinner

Authors
  1. Martin Wikelski
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  2. Elisa M. Tarlow
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  3. Corine M. Eising
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  4. Ton G.G. Groothuis
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  5. Ebo Gwinner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin Wikelski.

Additional information

Communicated by F. Bairlein

Ebo Gwinner was involved in the planning stage, the experimental realization and the writing of a manusript draft of this project. Unfortunately he deceased before the manuscript was completed. Thus, he was thus not involved in the finalization of the manuscript.

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Wikelski, M., Tarlow, E.M., Eising, C.M. et al. Do night-active birds lack daily melatonin rhythms? A case study comparing a diurnal and a nocturnal-foraging gull species. J Ornithol 147, 107–111 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-005-0018-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-005-0018-4

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