Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos (CESIMAR), Centro Nacional Patagónico - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CENPAT - CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina.
Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos (CESIMAR), Centro Nacional Patagónico - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CENPAT - CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina; School of Natural Sciences and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/ca_awruch.
Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol. 2024 Jan;287:111538. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2023.111538. Epub 2023 Oct 21.
According to life-history theory, limited resources can result in trade-offs between costly physiological functions. Particularly, it can be expected that individuals present lower immune function, or an alternative immunological strategy, during their reproductive compared to their non-reproductive season. Here we investigate the link between reproduction and immunity in two sympatric marine fish species, the rockfish Sebastes oculatus and the sandperch Pinguipes brasilianus. The results showed lower values of total white blood cells and spleen index, but higher levels of natural antibodies (only in females) in reproductive rockfish compared to non-reproductive ones. On the other hand, reproductively active sandperch showed lower levels of natural antibodies and a higher neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and spleen index (only in males), compared to non-reproductive ones. Also, negative correlations between reproductive and immune parameters were observed in female rockfish at the individual level, but not in sandperch. Our results are consistent with the presence of different immunological strategies in reproductive and non-reproductive periods, with patterns that appear to be species-specific. This specificity suggests that various aspects of immunity might respond differentially to resource limitation, which could be associated with the disparate life-history strategies of the studied species. Alternatively, though not exclusively, the observed patterns could be driven by abiotic factors that characterize the reproductive season of each species (i.e., winter for rockfish, summer for sandperch). Our study contributes to ecoimmunological knowledge on free-living fish and highlights that detection of trade-offs can depend on the combination of study species, season, sex, and specific immune components measured.
根据生活史理论，有限的资源会导致生理功能之间产生代价高昂的权衡。特别是，人们可以预期，与非繁殖期相比，个体在繁殖期的免疫功能较低，或者采用替代的免疫策略。在这里，我们研究了两种共生的海洋鱼类——石斑鱼 Sebastes oculatus 和沙鲈 Pinguipes brasilianus 的繁殖与免疫之间的联系。结果表明，与非繁殖期相比，繁殖期的石斑鱼的总白细胞和脾脏指数较低，但天然抗体水平较高（仅在雌性中）。另一方面，繁殖活跃的沙鲈的天然抗体水平较低，中性粒细胞与淋巴细胞比值和脾脏指数较高（仅在雄性中），与非繁殖期相比。此外，在个体水平上，雌性石斑鱼的繁殖和免疫参数之间存在负相关关系，但在沙鲈中则没有。我们的结果与在繁殖期和非繁殖期存在不同的免疫策略一致，而且这些模式似乎是特定于物种的。这种特异性表明，免疫的各个方面可能会对资源限制产生不同的反应，这可能与所研究物种的不同生活史策略有关。或者，尽管不是唯一的原因，但观察到的模式可能是由每个物种繁殖季节的生物因素驱动的（即石斑鱼的冬季，沙鲈的夏季）。我们的研究为自由生活鱼类的生态免疫学知识做出了贡献，并强调了权衡的检测可能取决于所研究物种、季节、性别和测量的特定免疫成分的组合。
