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Oxygen consumption in offspring tawny owls Strix aluco is associated with colour morph of foster mother

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Abstract

In several colour polymorphic species, morphs differ in thermoregulation either because dark and pale surfaces absorb solar radiation to a different extent and/or because morphs differ in key metabolic processes. Morph-specific thermoregulation may potentially account for the observation that differently coloured individuals are frequently not randomly distributed among habitats, and differ in many respects, including behaviour, morphology, survival and reproductive success. In a wild population of the colour polymorphic tawny owl Strix aluco, a recent cross-fostering experiment showed that offspring raised and born from red mothers were heavier than those from grey mothers. In the present study, we tested in the same individuals whether these morph-specific offspring growth patterns were associated with a difference in metabolic rate between offspring of red and grey mothers. For this purpose, we measured nestling oxygen consumption under two different temperatures (laboratory measurements: 4 and 20°C), and examined the relationships between these data sets and the colour morph of foster and biological mothers. After controlling for nestling body mass, oxygen consumption at 20°C was greater in foster offspring raised by grey foster mothers. No relationship was found between nestling oxygen consumption and coloration of their biological mother. Therefore, our study indicates that in our experiment offspring raised by grey foster mothers showed not only a lower body mass than offspring raised by red foster mothers, but also consumed more oxygen under warm temperature. This further indicates that rearing conditions in nests of grey mothers were more stressful than in nests of red mothers.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Maud Giorgi for technical assistance. This experiment was performed under legal authorization of the service vétérinaire du canton de Vaud (1508 to A.R. and 709.5 to P.C.). The project was financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant No. 823A-064719 to A.R. and 3100AO-104118/1 to P.C.) and the Hilfsfond of the Swiss Ornithological Institute of Sempach (to A.R.). The Swiss Meteorological Institute kindly provided temperature data measured in Payerne. Marcel Klaassen provided helpful comments on an earlier version of the text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biology Building, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Alexandre Roulin, Pierre Bize, Nathalie Tzaud, Matteo Bianchi & Philippe Christe

  2. Zoology institute, Division of Evolutionary Ecology, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 6, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Pierre Bize

  3. Rue de Theu, 1446, Baulmes, Switzerland

    Pierre-Alain Ravussin

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  1. Alexandre Roulin
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  2. Pierre Bize
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  3. Nathalie Tzaud
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  4. Matteo Bianchi
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  5. Pierre-Alain Ravussin
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  6. Philippe Christe
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Correspondence to Alexandre Roulin.

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Communicated by F. Bairlein

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Roulin, A., Bize, P., Tzaud, N. et al. Oxygen consumption in offspring tawny owls Strix aluco is associated with colour morph of foster mother. J Ornithol 146, 390–394 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-005-0096-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-005-0096-3

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