Factors affecting plasma concentrations of prolactin in the common eider Somateria mollissima

• Main Authors: François Criscuolo, Olivier Chastel, Geir Wing Gabrielsen, André Lacroix, Yvon Le Maho
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Common Eider; Somateria mollissima
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.506.4806; http://www.cebc.cnrs.fr/publipdf/2002/CGCE125.pdf

In the common eider only the females incubate while they fast for 25 days. Thus, since they rely entirely on their body reserves for successful incubation, they can be defined as capital incubators. To assess the po-tential effects of their initial body mass, the incuba-tion duration, and depletion in body reserves on pro-lactinemia, blood samples of eiders were analyzed during the breeding cycle and an experimental manipulation of the duration of incubation. Levels of circulating prolac-tin increased at the onset of incubation and then reached a high and stable level during incubation before increas-ing sharply before hatching. The prolactin level de-creased significantly upon hatching. Captive females de-prived from their eggs exhibited a rapid decrease in prolactinemia, suggesting that egg stimuli are necessary