Breeding status affects the hormonal and metabolic response to acute stress in a long-lived seabird, the king penguin

International audience Stress responses are suggested to physiologically underlie parental decisions promoting the redirection ofbehaviour away from offspring care when survival is jeopardized (e.g., when facing a predator). Besidesthis classical view, the ‘‘brood-value hypothesis” suggests that par...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:General and Comparative Endocrinology
Main Authors: Viblanc, Vincent A., Gineste, Benoît, Robin, Jean-Patrice, Groscolas, René
Other Authors: Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE-IPHC), Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC), Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), IPEV;CNRS-INEE
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2016
Subjects:
Glucocorticoids
Brood-value hypothesis
Lipid metabolism
Parental decisions
Life history trade-offs
Reproductive value
[SDE]Environmental Sciences
King Penguins
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-01390563
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygcen.2016.07.021
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Summary:International audience Stress responses are suggested to physiologically underlie parental decisions promoting the redirection ofbehaviour away from offspring care when survival is jeopardized (e.g., when facing a predator). Besidesthis classical view, the ‘‘brood-value hypothesis” suggests that parents’ stress responses may be adaptivelyattenuated to increase fitness, ensuring continued breeding when the relative value of the broodis high. Here, we test the brood-value hypothesis in breeding king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus),long-lived seabirds for which the energy commitment to reproduction is high. We subjected birds atdifferent breeding stages (courtship, incubation and chick brooding) to an acute 30-min capture stressand measured their hormonal (corticosterone, CORT) and metabolic (non-esterified fatty acid, NEFA)responses to stress. We found that CORT responses were markedly attenuated in chick-brooding birdswhen compared to earlier stages of breeding (courtship and incubation). In addition, NEFA responsesappeared to be rapidly attenuated in incubating and brooding birds, but a progressive increase inNEFA plasma levels in courting birds suggested energy mobilization to deal with the threat. Our resultssupport the idea that stress responses may constitute an important life-history mechanism mediatingparental reproductive decisions in relation to their expected fitness outcome

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