Abstract
A trade-off between resource investment into growth rate and body self-maintenance is likely to occur, but the underlying molecular mediators of such a trade-off remain to be determined. In many altricial birds, hatching asynchrony creates a sibling competitive hierarchy within the brood, with first-hatched nestlings enjoying substantial advantages compared to last-hatched nestlings. We used this opportunity to test for a trade-off between growth and self-maintenance processes (oxidative stress, telomere erosion) in great tit nestlings, since resource availability and allocation are likely to differ between first-hatched and last-hatched nestlings. We found that despite their starting competitive handicap (i.e. being smaller/lighter before day 16), last-hatched nestlings exhibited growth rate and mass/size at fledging similar to first-hatched ones. However, last-hatched nestlings suffered more in terms of oxidative stress, and ended growth with shorter telomeres than first-hatched ones. Interestingly, growth rate was positively related to plasma antioxidant capacity and early life telomere length (i.e. at 7 days old), but among last-hatched nestlings, those exhibiting the faster body size growth were also those exhibiting the greatest telomere erosion. Last-hatched nestlings exhibited elevated levels of plasma testosterone (T), but only at day 7. T levels were positively associated with oxidative damage levels and plasma antioxidant capacity, the latter being only significant for first-hatched nestlings. Our results suggest that last-hatched nestlings present a specific trade-off between growth rate and self-maintenance processes, which is possibly driven by their need to compete with their older siblings and potentially mediated by elevated levels of T.
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Acknowledgments
We thank A. Gross and the SRPO association for their contributions in the field. We are also grateful to S. Smith for editing the English and providing insightful comments. Finally we thank three anonymous reviewers, Professor Neil Metcalfe and Professor Mark Chappell for useful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.
Author contribution statement
A. S. designed the study. A. S. and S. M. collected the data. A. S. and F. C. undertook data analyses and interpretations. A. S., S. Z. and M. T. conducted the laboratory work. A. S. and F. C. wrote the paper.
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Communicated by Mark A. Chappell.
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Stier, A., Massemin, S., Zahn, S. et al. Starting with a handicap: effects of asynchronous hatching on growth rate, oxidative stress and telomere dynamics in free-living great tits. Oecologia 179, 999–1010 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3429-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3429-9