Diet, antioxidants and oxidative status in pygoscelid penguins

COLOMINAS-CIURÓ R; BERTELLOTTI M; D'AMICO VL; CARABAJAL E; BENZAL J; VIDAL BURGOS V.; MOTAS M; SANTOS M; CORIA N; BARBOSA A

MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES

INTER-RESEARCH

Lugar: Oldendorf/Luhe; Año: 2021 vol. 169

0171-8630

Diet and feeding strategies may affect the antioxidant defenses or the production3 of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Oxidative stress is defined as the imbalance between4 pro-oxidants and antioxidants defences. If such imbalance is in favour of the former,5 leading to oxidative damage (i.e.: oxidative destruction of biomolecules), oxidative stress6 would increase. However, the way animals adjust their oxidative status in relation to their7 foraging habitats, diet and dietary antioxidants in free-ranging animals remained8 unstudied as far as we know. Penguins are an interesting biological model to assess such9 comparison because their diet based on krill, fish and/or cephalopods presents marked10 differences in terms of dietary antioxidant content depending on their habitat. Therefore,11 we investigated diet (15N), foraging habitat (13C), dietary antioxidants (retinol, α-12 tocopherol and astaxanthin) and oxidative status (antioxidant capacity, OXY, and13 oxidative damage, ROMs) in pygoscelid penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus, P. papua and14 P. adeliae) breeding in Antarctica. We found interspecific differences for all variables15 analysed except for α-tocopherol. Gentoo penguins showed the greatest plasticity16 exploiting more cephalopods and fish around coastal and benthic habitats, whereas the17 other two pygoscelids foraged more on krill in pelagic waters. Dietary antioxidant levels18 showed specific patterns resulting in weak relationships with prey items and species-19 specific oxidative shielding capacity suggesting the importance of endogenously20 produced antioxidants. Oxidative status appeared to mirror both the foraging strategy as21 well as the oxidative shielding of each penguin species.