Pap Péter László, Vágási Csongor István, Vincze Orsolya, Osváth Gergely, Veres-Szászka Judit, Czirják Gábor Árpád
MTA-DE "Lendület" Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1, 4032, Debrecen, Hungary,
Oecologia. 2015 Jan;177(1):147-58. doi: 10.1007/s00442-014-3108-2. Epub 2014 Oct 15.
Constitutive innate immunity is the first lined of defence against infections, but the causes determining its variability among species are poorly understood. The pace of life hypothesis predicts that species with a fast speed of life, characterized by high energy turnover and short developmental time, invest relatively little in defence in favour of growth and early reproduction, whereas 'slow-living' species are predicted to invest more resources into costly defence. We conducted phylogenetic comparative analysis on 105 European bird species and determined that the number of leukocytes, and the levels of natural antibodies (NAbs) and complement, measured on adult birds, increased or tended to positively correlate with the length of incubation period. However, we found that the length of incubation and fledging periods have opposite effects on immune defence (i.e. immune parameters show a negative association with the length of fledging period). Our results suggest that the contrasting effects of the incubation and fledging periods are related to the timing of the development of immune cells and of NAbs and complement, which largely mature during the embryonic phase of development. In support of this hypothesis, we found that species with a long relative incubation period [i.e. whose total pre-fledging developmental time (incubation plus fledging) consists largely of the incubation period] invested more in constitutive innate immunity. Finally, in support of the pace of life hypothesis, for a subsample of 63 species, we found that the basal metabolic rate significantly or tended to negatively correlate with immune measures.
组成性先天免疫是抵御感染的第一道防线，但决定其在物种间变异性的原因却知之甚少。生活节奏假说预测，生活节奏快的物种，其特征是能量转换率高和发育时间短，在防御方面投入相对较少，而倾向于生长和早期繁殖，而“慢生活”物种预计会将更多资源投入到代价高昂的防御中。我们对105种欧洲鸟类进行了系统发育比较分析，确定成年鸟类的白细胞数量、天然抗体（NAbs）水平和补体水平与孵化期长度呈正相关或呈正相关趋势。然而，我们发现孵化期和羽化期的长度对免疫防御有相反的影响（即免疫参数与羽化期长度呈负相关）。我们的结果表明，孵化期和羽化期的不同影响与免疫细胞、NAbs和补体的发育时间有关，它们在发育的胚胎阶段基本成熟。为支持这一假设，我们发现相对孵化期长的物种[即其羽化前的总发育时间（孵化加羽化）主要由孵化期组成]在组成性先天免疫方面投入更多。最后，为支持生活节奏假说，对于63个物种的子样本，我们发现基础代谢率与免疫指标显著或呈负相关趋势。
