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Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl
Social information use has well-known fitness benefits. However, causes underlying the apparent inter-individual variability in the propensity to use social information are poorly studied. Melanins are pigments responsible for most of intra-specific color variation in vertebrates and their variation...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7002771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32024960 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58826-6 |
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author | Parejo, Deseada Avilés, Jesús M. |
author_facet | Parejo, Deseada Avilés, Jesús M. |
author_sort | Parejo, Deseada |
collection | PubMed |
description | Social information use has well-known fitness benefits. However, causes underlying the apparent inter-individual variability in the propensity to use social information are poorly studied. Melanins are pigments responsible for most of intra-specific color variation in vertebrates and their variation is often associated with changes in behaviour. Here, we explored whether melanism is related to individual propensity to use social information in the color polymorphic scops owl Otus scops. We manipulated social information on predation risk at nests by broadcasting calls of the sympatric little owl Athene noctua and found that owlets of brownish females exposed to alarm calls had lower levels of natural antibodies than those of greyish females. In parallel, we found changes in parental behaviour contingent on coloration because when exposed to the risky treatment brownish females returned earlier to nests than greyish females and owlets raised by brownish females were fed with smaller prey than those raised by greyish ones. These results provide support for a previous ignored role of melanins on the propensity to use social information, which may help to explain the maintenance of melanin-based color polymorphisms wherever social environments are variable. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7002771 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70027712020-02-14 Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl Parejo, Deseada Avilés, Jesús M. Sci Rep Article Social information use has well-known fitness benefits. However, causes underlying the apparent inter-individual variability in the propensity to use social information are poorly studied. Melanins are pigments responsible for most of intra-specific color variation in vertebrates and their variation is often associated with changes in behaviour. Here, we explored whether melanism is related to individual propensity to use social information in the color polymorphic scops owl Otus scops. We manipulated social information on predation risk at nests by broadcasting calls of the sympatric little owl Athene noctua and found that owlets of brownish females exposed to alarm calls had lower levels of natural antibodies than those of greyish females. In parallel, we found changes in parental behaviour contingent on coloration because when exposed to the risky treatment brownish females returned earlier to nests than greyish females and owlets raised by brownish females were fed with smaller prey than those raised by greyish ones. These results provide support for a previous ignored role of melanins on the propensity to use social information, which may help to explain the maintenance of melanin-based color polymorphisms wherever social environments are variable. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7002771/ /pubmed/32024960 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58826-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Parejo, Deseada Avilés, Jesús M. Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
title | Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
title_full | Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
title_fullStr | Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
title_full_unstemmed | Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
title_short | Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
title_sort | melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7002771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32024960 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58826-6 |
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