Immunity and reproduction are important and costly life-history traits and a large part of eco-immunology focuses on trade-offs between investing in reproduction versus immunity. Male Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) are a good organism to test these trade-offs as they invest heavily in sperm competition, evidenced by their large testes, and exhibit alternative reproductive tactics. My research objective was to determine 1) if testosterone suppresses immunity, or if immunity suppresses testosterone, and 2) if alternative reproductive tactics differ in their investments in immunity and reproduction. I found evidence that testosterone was suppressed after an immune challenge, and that manipulatively increased testosterone had no effect on immunity, body condition or parasites. The dispersing tactic males were in worse condition, had higher parasite abundances, but showed no difference in their innate immune ability to non-dispersing males. Males incur increased costs with dispersal and may focus their energy into reproduction instead of immunity. / October 2015
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/30821 |
| Date | 17 September 2015 |
| Creators | O'Brien, Kelsey A. |
| Contributors | Waterman, Jane (Biological Sciences), Anderson, Gary (Biological Sciences) Galloway, Terry (Entomology) |
| Source Sets | University of Manitoba Canada |
| Detected Language | English |
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