Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits

Environmental factors affecting trophic conditions act as stressors on nestling altricial birds. Access of parental birds to a sufficient supply of food in a limited period of the nestling stage differ in time and space, depending on nesting habitat, prey density and weather conditions. Heterophil-t...

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Main Authors:	Banbura, Jerzy, Skwarska, Joanna, Banbura, Miroslawa, Gladalski, Michal, Holysz, Magdalena, Kalinski, Adam, Markowski, Marcin, Wawrzyniak, Jaroslaw, Zielinski, Piotr
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774732/

id	pubmed-3774732
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-37747322013-09-24 Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits Banbura, Jerzy Skwarska, Joanna Banbura, Miroslawa Gladalski, Michal Holysz, Magdalena Kalinski, Adam Markowski, Marcin Wawrzyniak, Jaroslaw Zielinski, Piotr Research Article Environmental factors affecting trophic conditions act as stressors on nestling altricial birds. Access of parental birds to a sufficient supply of food in a limited period of the nestling stage differ in time and space, depending on nesting habitat, prey density and weather conditions. Heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (H/L) is considered as a reliable indicator of prolonged stress reaction in birds. In this study we examine if variation in H/L shows consistent spatio-temporal patterns in nestlings of two parids, blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus and great tit Parus major. We found that blue tit nestlings had on average higher H/L than great tit nestlings, which corresponds with the ecological sensitivity of these species. In both species H/L was higher in a poor parkland habitat than in a high quality forest habitat. In nestling blue tits, higher H/L values occurred in years characterized by more extreme weather conditions and worse caterpillar availability. Such consistent patterns of variation in the H/L ratio of nestling blue tits and great tits suggest that, when age-dependent effects are controlled, the ratio can be used as an indicator of physiological stress that is generated by food-related stressors differing in space and time. In particular, elevated H/L ratios are indicative of human-induced changes in the structure of breeding habitats. Public Library of Science 2013-09-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3774732/ /pubmed/24066123 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0074226 Text en © 2013 Banbura et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Banbura, Jerzy Skwarska, Joanna Banbura, Miroslawa Gladalski, Michal Holysz, Magdalena Kalinski, Adam Markowski, Marcin Wawrzyniak, Jaroslaw Zielinski, Piotr
spellingShingle	Banbura, Jerzy Skwarska, Joanna Banbura, Miroslawa Gladalski, Michal Holysz, Magdalena Kalinski, Adam Markowski, Marcin Wawrzyniak, Jaroslaw Zielinski, Piotr Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits
author_facet	Banbura, Jerzy Skwarska, Joanna Banbura, Miroslawa Gladalski, Michal Holysz, Magdalena Kalinski, Adam Markowski, Marcin Wawrzyniak, Jaroslaw Zielinski, Piotr
author_sort	Banbura, Jerzy
title	Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits
title_short	Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits
title_full	Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits
title_fullStr	Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits
title_full_unstemmed	Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits
title_sort	spatial and temporal variation in heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratios of nestling passerine birds: comparison of blue tits and great tits
description	Environmental factors affecting trophic conditions act as stressors on nestling altricial birds. Access of parental birds to a sufficient supply of food in a limited period of the nestling stage differ in time and space, depending on nesting habitat, prey density and weather conditions. Heterophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (H/L) is considered as a reliable indicator of prolonged stress reaction in birds. In this study we examine if variation in H/L shows consistent spatio-temporal patterns in nestlings of two parids, blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus and great tit Parus major. We found that blue tit nestlings had on average higher H/L than great tit nestlings, which corresponds with the ecological sensitivity of these species. In both species H/L was higher in a poor parkland habitat than in a high quality forest habitat. In nestling blue tits, higher H/L values occurred in years characterized by more extreme weather conditions and worse caterpillar availability. Such consistent patterns of variation in the H/L ratio of nestling blue tits and great tits suggest that, when age-dependent effects are controlled, the ratio can be used as an indicator of physiological stress that is generated by food-related stressors differing in space and time. In particular, elevated H/L ratios are indicative of human-induced changes in the structure of breeding habitats.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774732/
_version_	1612011891589120000

Spatial and Temporal Variation in Heterophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratios of Nestling Passerine Birds: Comparison of Blue Tits and Great Tits

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