Adaptation to a threatened world: What the immune system of the Antarctic penguins can tell us?

BENZAL J; CORIA N; DE MAS E; PARK H; SANTOS M; BERTELLOTTI M; CUERVO JJ; PALACIOS MJ; VALERA F; BARBOSA A; COLOMINAS-CIURÓ R; D'AMICO VL; REGACHO T; VIDAL V

Leuven

Simposio; XIIth SCAR Biology Symposium; 2017

Scientific Committe of Antarctic Research (SCAR)

Parasites are the most abundant species in the Earth. Antarctica and the wildlife inhabiting this continent is not free of these organisms although the information about their presence and their effects are scarce and fragmented. Along the evolution, hosts have developed mechanisms to defend themselves against the action of parasites. Penguins as vertebrates have a very well developed immune system composed by a great variation of components, such as the innate or the acquired immunity, or the humoral and cellular immune response. Parasites are affected by global change by increasing their distribution, their abundance and virulence and this trend should also be present in a region like Antarctica and specifically the Antarctic Peninsula, where huge environmental changes due to the increase of temperatures and the increase of the human presence are present. Such changes can affect penguins increasing the risk of exposure to new parasites or emergent diseases or simply producing population changes in the endemic parasites or diseases which could increase their effects. To avoid or reduce such effects, penguins should response through its immune system. Here we give information about the functioning of the immune system in these species from a spatial a temporal perspective. We show that some components of the immune response have a genetic basis while others seem to show a high environmental component; how the immune system can be affected by environmental changes such as variation in snow precipitation, how differences in parasite prevalence can affect the response by penguins, how different physiological stages could also influence the immunological response and how human activity can also affect penguin immunity. As a conclusion, considering that penguins are sentinels of the changes in Southern Ocean and that the immune system responds to a great variety of factors, immunity can be considered as an indicator of the health status at both population and individual level in penguins, then monitoring its variability seems to be crucial for surveillance the health of the Antarctic continent.