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Manipulation of parental effort affects plumage bacterial load in a wild passerine

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Abstract

It has been suggested that plumage microorganisms play an important role in shaping the life histories of wild birds. Some bacteria may act as pathogens or cause damage to feathers, and thereby reduce individual fitness. Intense parental care in birds can result in a reduction of self-maintenance and preening behavior in parents and therefore might affect the dynamics of microbiota living on their feathers. However, experimental evidence of this relationship is virtually absent. We manipulated the parental effort of wild breeding pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) females by modifying their brood size or temporarily removing male partners. We expected that experimentally decreasing or increasing parental effort would affect feather sanitation in females and therefore also bacterial density on their plumage. In accordance with this hypothesis, manipulation affected the density of free-living bacteria: females with reduced broods had the lowest number of free-living bacteria on their feathers, while females left without male partners had the highest. However, manipulation did not have a significant effect on the densities of attached bacteria. Our results provide experimental evidence that a trade-off between self-maintenance and parental effort affects plumage bacterial densities in birds.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Anu Rätsep for laboratory assistance, Lepiku Sass for valuable advice concerning fieldwork, Jaanis Lodjak for help in data analysis, and John Davison for commenting on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Estonian Science Foundation (grant number 8566 to RM), the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science (target-financing project number 0180004s09) and the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence FIBIR).

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  1. Department of Zoology, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, 46 Vanemuise Str., 51014, Tartu, Estonia

    Grete Alt, Pauli Saag, Marko Mägi & Raivo Mänd

  2. Institute of Technology, University of Tartu, 1 Nooruse Str., 50411, Tartu, Estonia

    Veljo Kisand

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  1. Grete Alt
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  2. Pauli Saag
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Correspondence to Grete Alt.

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Communicated by Oliver P. Love.

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Alt, G., Saag, P., Mägi, M. et al. Manipulation of parental effort affects plumage bacterial load in a wild passerine. Oecologia 178, 451–459 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3238-1

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