Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones?
A surging interest in the evolution of consistent trait correlations has inspired research on pigment patterns as a correlate of behavioural syndromes, or “animal personalities”. Associations between pigmentation, physiology and health status are less investigated as potentially conserved trait clus...
Published in: | PLoS ONE |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science
2012
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320900 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22493685 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3320900 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3320900 2023-05-15T15:32:29+02:00 Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? Kittilsen, Silje Johansen, Ida Beitnes Braastad, Bjarne Olai Øverli, Øyvind 2012-04-06 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320900 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22493685 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320900 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22493685 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 Kittilsen et al. 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 credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2012 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 2013-09-04T05:15:49Z A surging interest in the evolution of consistent trait correlations has inspired research on pigment patterns as a correlate of behavioural syndromes, or “animal personalities”. Associations between pigmentation, physiology and health status are less investigated as potentially conserved trait clusters. In the current study, lice counts performed on farmed Atlantic salmon Salmo salar naturally infected with ectoparasitic sea lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis showed that individual fish with high incidence of black melanin-based skin spots harboured fewer female sea lice carrying egg sacs, compared to less pigmented fish. There was no significant association between pigmentation and lice at other developmental stages, suggesting that host factors associated with melanin-based pigmentation may modify ectoparasite development to a larger degree than settlement. In a subsequent laboratory experiment a strong negative correlation between skin spots and post-stress cortisol levels was revealed, with less pigmented individuals showing a more pronounced cortisol response to acute stress. The observation that lice prevalence was strongly increased on a fraction of sexually mature male salmon which occurred among the farmed fish further supports a role for steroid hormones as mediators of reduced parasite resistance. The data presented here propose steroid hormones as a proximate cause for the association between melanin-based pigmentation and parasites. Possible fundamental and applied implications are discussed. Text Atlantic salmon Salmo salar PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 7 4 e34281 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Research Article |
spellingShingle |
Research Article Kittilsen, Silje Johansen, Ida Beitnes Braastad, Bjarne Olai Øverli, Øyvind Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
A surging interest in the evolution of consistent trait correlations has inspired research on pigment patterns as a correlate of behavioural syndromes, or “animal personalities”. Associations between pigmentation, physiology and health status are less investigated as potentially conserved trait clusters. In the current study, lice counts performed on farmed Atlantic salmon Salmo salar naturally infected with ectoparasitic sea lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis showed that individual fish with high incidence of black melanin-based skin spots harboured fewer female sea lice carrying egg sacs, compared to less pigmented fish. There was no significant association between pigmentation and lice at other developmental stages, suggesting that host factors associated with melanin-based pigmentation may modify ectoparasite development to a larger degree than settlement. In a subsequent laboratory experiment a strong negative correlation between skin spots and post-stress cortisol levels was revealed, with less pigmented individuals showing a more pronounced cortisol response to acute stress. The observation that lice prevalence was strongly increased on a fraction of sexually mature male salmon which occurred among the farmed fish further supports a role for steroid hormones as mediators of reduced parasite resistance. The data presented here propose steroid hormones as a proximate cause for the association between melanin-based pigmentation and parasites. Possible fundamental and applied implications are discussed. |
format |
Text |
author |
Kittilsen, Silje Johansen, Ida Beitnes Braastad, Bjarne Olai Øverli, Øyvind |
author_facet |
Kittilsen, Silje Johansen, Ida Beitnes Braastad, Bjarne Olai Øverli, Øyvind |
author_sort |
Kittilsen, Silje |
title |
Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? |
title_short |
Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? |
title_full |
Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? |
title_fullStr |
Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Pigments, Parasites and Personalitiy: Towards a Unifying Role for Steroid Hormones? |
title_sort |
pigments, parasites and personalitiy: towards a unifying role for steroid hormones? |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320900 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22493685 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 |
genre |
Atlantic salmon Salmo salar |
genre_facet |
Atlantic salmon Salmo salar |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3320900 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22493685 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 |
op_rights |
Kittilsen et al. 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 credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034281 |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
7 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
e34281 |
_version_ |
1766362984591917056 |