TY - JOUR
T1 - Sexual comparisons in immune ability, survival and parasite intensity in two damselfly species
AU - Córdoba-Aguilar, A.
AU - Contreras-Garduño, J.
AU - Peralta-Vázquez, H.
AU - Luna-González, A.
AU - Campa-Córdova, A. I.
AU - Ascencio, F.
N1 - Funding Information:
PAPIIT, the Posgrado en Ciencias Biomédicas and the Instituto de Ecología, all from the UNAM, provided financial support. J. C.-G .is in debt with R. Bolaños-García for her hospitality and help in La Paz, J. Manjarrez for his logistic help, J. Canales-Lazcano, A. Altamirano, L.B. Rivera Rodríguez, C.S. Venegas Barrera and K.A. Domínguez Linares for their help in the collection trips and the survival experiment, and N. Estrada, M. Rodríguez Ojeda and M. Romero Geraldo for their laboratory support. Finally to V. Méndez for discussion. Comments of two anonymous reviewers greatly improved early stages of the manuscript.
PY - 2006/8
Y1 - 2006/8
N2 - Recent evolutionary studies have suggested that females have a more robust immune system than males. Using two damselfly species (Hetaerina americana and Argia tezpi), we tested if females produced higher immune responses (as phenoloxidase and hydrolytic enzymes), had a higher survival (using a nylon implant inserted in the abdomen and measuring survival after 24 h) and fewer parasites (gregarines and water mites) than males. We also tested whether immune differences should emerge in different body areas (thorax vs. abdomen) within each sex with the prediction that only females will differ with the abdomen having a higher immune response than their thorax since the former area, for ecological and physiological reasons, may be a target zone for increased immune investment. Animals were adults of approximately the same age. In both species, females were more immunocompetent than males, but only in H. americana females were immune responses greater in the abdomen than in the thorax. However, there were no differences in survival and parasite intensity or the probability of being parasitised between the sexes in either of the two species. Thus, this study lends partial support to the principle that females are better at defending than males despite the null difference in parasitism and survival.
AB - Recent evolutionary studies have suggested that females have a more robust immune system than males. Using two damselfly species (Hetaerina americana and Argia tezpi), we tested if females produced higher immune responses (as phenoloxidase and hydrolytic enzymes), had a higher survival (using a nylon implant inserted in the abdomen and measuring survival after 24 h) and fewer parasites (gregarines and water mites) than males. We also tested whether immune differences should emerge in different body areas (thorax vs. abdomen) within each sex with the prediction that only females will differ with the abdomen having a higher immune response than their thorax since the former area, for ecological and physiological reasons, may be a target zone for increased immune investment. Animals were adults of approximately the same age. In both species, females were more immunocompetent than males, but only in H. americana females were immune responses greater in the abdomen than in the thorax. However, there were no differences in survival and parasite intensity or the probability of being parasitised between the sexes in either of the two species. Thus, this study lends partial support to the principle that females are better at defending than males despite the null difference in parasitism and survival.
KW - Damselflies
KW - Hydrolytic enzymes
KW - Immune sexual dimorphism
KW - Parasitism
KW - Phenoloxidase
KW - Survival
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33746498449&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2006.05.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2006.05.008
M3 - Artículo
C2 - 16843483
AN - SCOPUS:33746498449
SN - 0022-1910
VL - 52
SP - 861
EP - 869
JO - Journal of Insect Physiology
JF - Journal of Insect Physiology
IS - 8
ER -