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A potential role for parasites in the maintenance of color polymorphism in urban birds

  • Global change ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Urbanization is a major challenge for biodiversity conservation, yet the evolutionary processes taking place in urbanized areas remain poorly known. Human activities in cities set new selective forces in motion which need to be investigated to predict the evolutionary responses of animal species living in urban areas. In this study, we investigated the role of urbanization and parasites in the maintenance of melanin-based color polymorphism in the feral pigeon Columba livia. Using a correlative approach, we tested whether differently colored genotypes displayed alternative phenotypic responses to urbanization, by comparing body condition, blood parasite prevalence and parasite load between colored morphs along an urbanization gradient. Body condition did not vary with urbanization, but paler individuals had a higher body condition than darker individuals. Moreover, paler morphs were less often parasitized than darker morphs in moderately urbanized habitats, but their parasite prevalence increased with urbanization. In contrast, darker morphs had similar parasite prevalence along the urbanization gradient. This suggests that paler morphs did better than darker morphs in moderately urbanized environments but were negatively affected by increasing urbanization, while darker morphs performed equally in all environments. Thus, differently colored individuals were distributed non-randomly across the urban habitat and suffered different parasite risk according to their location (a gene-by-environment interaction). This suggests that melanin-based coloration might reflect alternative strategies to cope with urbanization via different exposure or susceptibility to parasites. Spatial variability of parasite pressures linked with urbanization may, thus, play a central role in the maintenance of plumage color polymorphism in this urban species.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is dedicated to the late Aurore Boussier. All experiments and protocols were approved and authorized by the veterinary department of Seine-et-Marne (authorization no. 77-05). We are grateful to T. Charachon, the Mairie de Paris, the AERHO association, the ESPACES association, M. Toresila and the SACPA company for logistic support during the captures. We thank S. Ollier for help with statistical analyses and A. Belguermi, A. Cuquemelle, S. Loisel, L. Chauvin, C. Haussy and F. Tisseront for great help at different stages of this study. We thank two anonymous referees and S. Reader for helpful comments on a previous version of the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from the Region Ile-de-France (Sustainable Development Network R2DS, no. 2008-07) and the IFR 101 Ecology, Biodiversity, Evolution, Environment. L. Jacquin was supported by the French Ministry of Research and the Fyssen Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Ecologie et Evolution (EcoEvo), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, CNRS ENS UPMC, 7 quai St Bernard, Paris, France

    L. Jacquin, C. Récapet, P. Lenouvel, N. Erin, H. Corbel, A. Frantz & J. Gasparini

  2. Department of Biology and Redpath Museum, McGill University, 859 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, QC, Canada

    L. Jacquin

  3. Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive (LBBE), Université Claude Bernard-Lyon 1, Lyon, France

    C. Récapet

  4. Laboratoire Conservation des Espèces, Restauration et Suivi des Populations (CERSP), Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 55 rue Buffon, Paris, France

    A.-C. Prévot-Julliard

  5. Laboratoire d’Ethologie et Cognition Comparées (LECC), Université Paris-Ouest, 200 avenue de la République, Nanterre, France

    G. Leboucher

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  1. L. Jacquin
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  2. C. Récapet
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  5. P. Lenouvel
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  6. N. Erin
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  8. A. Frantz
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  9. J. Gasparini
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Correspondence to L. Jacquin.

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Communicated by Markku Orell.

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Jacquin, L., Récapet, C., Prévot-Julliard, AC. et al. A potential role for parasites in the maintenance of color polymorphism in urban birds. Oecologia 173, 1089–1099 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-013-2663-2

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