CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

It is established that haematological and biochemical parameters provide important data to assess the physiological condition and health status of wildbirds. To undertake conservation physiology or ecophysiology work, it istherefore essential to establish baseline physiological parameters and howthese parameters change with age and life history events. In this work, wedetermined and compared baseline haematology and serum biochemistrybetween adults and chicks of three Antarctic penguin species of the genusPygoscelis: gentoo (P. papua), Ade´ lie (P. adeliae) and chinstrap (P. antarcticus). Differences in adults among species were observed in haemoglobin and biochemical parameters such as total proteins, glucose and alkaline phosphatase activity. In addition, differences between adults and chicks in haematocrit, haemoglobin, total proteins and glucose concentration were determined. Moreover, we evaluated the electrophoretic protein profiles between adults and chicks of the genus Pygoscelis, and a conserved protein pattern wasobserved among species and ages in the genus. Altogether, the results suggestthat biochemical and haematological differences among pygoscelids may berelated to the nutritional status and energetic expenditure during breeding aswell as their feeding habits and development stage.