Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr
Within a species, different males may display different mating strategies. For example, some males may be selected to invest in attractiveness and mate guarding, whereas others are selected for increased sperm production and sneaky breeding. In systems with a hierarchical structure, dominant males a...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z02-244 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/z02-244 |
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crcansciencepubl:10.1139/z02-244 2023-12-17T10:23:45+01:00 Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr Liljedal, Ståle Folstad, Ivar 2003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z02-244 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/z02-244 en eng Canadian Science Publishing http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/about/CorporateTextAndDataMining Canadian Journal of Zoology volume 81, issue 2, page 221-227 ISSN 0008-4301 1480-3283 Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics journal-article 2003 crcansciencepubl https://doi.org/10.1139/z02-244 2023-11-19T13:38:35Z Within a species, different males may display different mating strategies. For example, some males may be selected to invest in attractiveness and mate guarding, whereas others are selected for increased sperm production and sneaky breeding. In systems with a hierarchical structure, dominant males are expected to adopt mate-guarding behaviour and subordinate males sneaky-breeding behaviour. In this study, we kept wild-caught and sexually ripe male Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in size-matched pairs and determined social rank from the number of aggressive encounters. After 4 days, subordinate males showed symptoms of stress, with higher blood glucose and erythrocyte levels than dominant males. There were no differences between dominant and subordinate males in parasite intensities or immune activity, measured as levels of granulocytes and lymphocytes in blood. Although subordinate males had smaller testes than dominant males, they still had a higher density of sperm cells and higher sperm numbers relative to the size of their testes. These results can be explained as indicating adaptation of subordinate males for reproduction in an unfavourable role, always exposed to sperm competition and out of synchrony with females' egg release. Our results suggest that rapid changes in social rank may affect ejaculate production. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic charr Arctic Salvelinus alpinus Canadian Science Publishing (via Crossref) Arctic Canadian Journal of Zoology 81 2 221 227 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Canadian Science Publishing (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crcansciencepubl |
language |
English |
topic |
Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
spellingShingle |
Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Liljedal, Ståle Folstad, Ivar Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr |
topic_facet |
Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
description |
Within a species, different males may display different mating strategies. For example, some males may be selected to invest in attractiveness and mate guarding, whereas others are selected for increased sperm production and sneaky breeding. In systems with a hierarchical structure, dominant males are expected to adopt mate-guarding behaviour and subordinate males sneaky-breeding behaviour. In this study, we kept wild-caught and sexually ripe male Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in size-matched pairs and determined social rank from the number of aggressive encounters. After 4 days, subordinate males showed symptoms of stress, with higher blood glucose and erythrocyte levels than dominant males. There were no differences between dominant and subordinate males in parasite intensities or immune activity, measured as levels of granulocytes and lymphocytes in blood. Although subordinate males had smaller testes than dominant males, they still had a higher density of sperm cells and higher sperm numbers relative to the size of their testes. These results can be explained as indicating adaptation of subordinate males for reproduction in an unfavourable role, always exposed to sperm competition and out of synchrony with females' egg release. Our results suggest that rapid changes in social rank may affect ejaculate production. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Liljedal, Ståle Folstad, Ivar |
author_facet |
Liljedal, Ståle Folstad, Ivar |
author_sort |
Liljedal, Ståle |
title |
Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr |
title_short |
Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr |
title_full |
Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr |
title_fullStr |
Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr |
title_full_unstemmed |
Milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate Arctic charr |
title_sort |
milt quality, parasites, and immune function in dominant and subordinate arctic charr |
publisher |
Canadian Science Publishing |
publishDate |
2003 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z02-244 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/z02-244 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic charr Arctic Salvelinus alpinus |
genre_facet |
Arctic charr Arctic Salvelinus alpinus |
op_source |
Canadian Journal of Zoology volume 81, issue 2, page 221-227 ISSN 0008-4301 1480-3283 |
op_rights |
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/about/CorporateTextAndDataMining |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1139/z02-244 |
container_title |
Canadian Journal of Zoology |
container_volume |
81 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
221 |
op_container_end_page |
227 |
_version_ |
1785560081957388288 |