INVESTIGADORES
PALACIOS Maria Gabriela
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Unraveling the causes of immune defense variation between life-history ecotypes of the garter snake Thamnophis elegans.
Autor/es:
PALACIOS, M. G.; SPARKMAN, A. M.; BRONIKOWSKI, A. M.
Lugar:
Westminster, Colorado, EEUU
Reunión:
Congreso; Intersociety Meeting: Global Change and Global Science: Comparative Physiology in a Changing World"; 2010
Institución organizadora:
American Physiological Society
Resumen:
Ecoimmunology theory predicts a link between life-history and immune defense strategies such that fast-living organisms should rely more on constitutive innate defenses compared to slow-living ones. This prediction is supported in two life-history ecotypes of the garter snake, Thamnophis elegans. Fast-living snakes that live in lakeshore habitats show higher levels of natural antibodies, complement-mediated lysis, and bactericidal competence than slow-living snakes inhabiting meadows around the lake. We performed a common-garden experiment to test whether these differences observed in the field are fixed or are mainly plastic responses to environmental differences between lakeshore and meadow habitats. Snakes born and raised in common-garden conditions reflected the immune phenotype of their native habitats when initially sampled at 4 months of age (i.e., lakeshore snakes showed higher levels of innate immunity than meadow snakes), but no longer showed differences a year later. These results suggest that differences in innate immunity between the two ecotypes have a strong environmental influence, although they do rule out a genetic contribution. Early genetic and/or prenatal maternal effects could explain the initial differences in innate immunity observed in the common garden. We discuss approaches to differentiate between these explanations and the implications of our results for ecoimmunology theory. The National Science Foundation provided funding for this research.