Winter feeding of birds increases productivity in the subsequent breeding season

Supplementary food given to birds can have contemporary effects by reducing the risk of starvation, increasing survival and altering movements and reproductive performance. There is, however, a widely held perception that birds benefit from extra food over winter, but that it is better that they 'look after themselves' during breeding. Here we describe a landscape-scale experiment showing for the first time that the effects of increasing food availability only during the winter can be carried over to the subsequent breeding season. Even though food supplementation stopped six weeks prior to breeding, birds living on sites provisioned over winter had advanced laying dates and increased fledging success compared with birds living on unprovisioned sites. Thus, supplemental feeding of wild birds during winter, in a manner mimicking householders provisioning in gardens and backyards, has the potential to alter bird population dynamics by altering future reproductive performance. With levels of bird feeding by the public continuing to increase, the impacts of this additional food supply on wild bird populations may be considerable.     

Effect of the early-life nutritional environment on fecundity and fertility of mammals

The early-life developmental environment is instrumental in shaping our overall adult health and well-being. Early-life diet and endocrine exposure may independently, or in concert with our genetic constitution, induce a pathophysiological process that amplifies with age and leads to premature morbidity and mortality. Recently, this has become known as ‘programming’ but is akin to ‘maternal effects’ described for many years in the biological sciences and is defined as any influence that acts during critical developmental windows to induce long-term changes in the organisms'' phenotype. To date, such delayed maternal effects have largely been characterized in terms of susceptibility to cardiovascular or metabolic disease. Here, we review evidence from experimental animal species, non-human primates and man for an effect of the early-life nutritional environment on adult fecundity and fertility. In addition, using a database of pedigree sheep, we also specifically test the hypothesis that being born small for gestational age with or without post-natal growth acceleration directly programmes fertility. We conclude that there is a lack of compelling evidence to suggest pre-natal undernutrition may directly reduce adult fecundity and fertility, but may exert some effects secondarily via an increased incidence of ‘metabolic syndrome’. Possible effects of being born relatively large on subsequent fecundity and fertility warrant further investigation.     

The nutritional importance of dietary blood components for reproduction in the tsetse fly, Glossina morsitans

Females of Glossina morsitans morsitans were fed diets of different composition and their performance in terms of survival, fecundity and offspring size, used as a basis for assessing the nutritional importance of the dietary constituents for reproduction. Diets comprised defibrinated bovine blood from which individual components had been removed, or various fractions of bovine blood mixed in different ratios and combinations.Flies fed serum-free diets (comprising saline-washed bovine erythrocytes) failed to reproduce and their ovaries were atrophied. Attempts were made to correct these symptoms by adding serum components to washed erythrocytes. Results showed that serum albumin and lipoproteins were vital for ovarian growth. The erythrocytes in defibrinated bovine blood could be replaced by preparations of haemoglobin. Dialysis against isotonic sodium chloride, removal of gamma globulins, removal of lymphocytes or heating to 55°C for 2 h did not alter the nutritional quality of defibrinated bovine blood. The qualitative importance of dietary albumin associated lipids and lipoproteins for oöcyte growth suggests a specialisation which may be peculiar to viviparous Diptera. Results are discussed in terms of the development of synthetic diets for tsetse.     

Estimating Pesticide Effects on Fecundity Rates of Wild Birds Using Current Laboratory Reproduction Tests

Regulatory agencies have used laboratory toxicity tests for decades to assess potential risks of pesticide use to wildlife, but questions remain about the ecological significance of test results. Population models may provide a valuable tool for projecting the consequences of pesticide use if information exists on the relationship between exposure and effects on survival and fecundity rates. We review issues of using avian reproduction test results for estimating changes in fecundity rates of wild birds. The avian reproduction test originated from studies focused on eggshell quality and embryotoxic effects of bioaccumulating, organochlorine pesticides. Current pesticides exhibit other potential reproductive effects that are not measured or that are poorly characterized. Because several experimental design features of the laboratory test may lead to overestimation or underestimation of the magnitude of risk of a particular pesticide to wild birds, determination of the magnitude of effects on fecundity cannot be based solely on the results of standardized laboratory tests. Quantifying the overall impact of pesticides on avian fecundity rates for use in population modeling will require additional information from modified laboratory tests that address specific questions, field monitoring or experimental field studies, and simulation models of avian productivity.     

Prolonged offspring dependence and cooperative breeding in birds

It has been suggested that the evolution of cooperative breedingin birds is associated with unusually long periods of offspringdependence ; this appears paradoxical because cooperative breedersoften produce more broods than their noncooperatively breedingrelatives. I compared the duration of parental care betweencooperatively and noncooperatively breeding species using phylogeneticallyindependent contrasts and matched pairs. The incubation andnestling periods did not differ between the two parental caresystems, but the duration of postfledging offspring care wassignificantly longer in species that regularly breed cooperatively.This relationship remained when other factors that are thoughtto affect the duration of fledgling care (breeding habitat,body size, latitude of breeding, diet) were controlled statistically.Cooperative breeders appear to provide more prolonged postfledgingcare because additional care providers reduce the costs of parenting, offspring have less incentive to become independent,and a division of labor can develop during reproduction—helperscontinue to feed fledglings while breeders initiate the nextnesting attempt.     

营养物质和水分对韭菜迟眼蕈蚊成虫繁殖和寿命的影响

【目的】研究韭菜迟眼蕈蚊Bradysia odoriphaga成虫对营养物质的选择补充习性,找出对其产卵繁殖起重要作用的关键因子,为其有效防控提供依据。【方法】通过室内成虫单独配对试验,研究不同营养物质(花粉、蜂蜜、维生素、糖、醋、酒)和水分对韭菜迟眼蕈蚊成虫繁殖和寿命的影响。【结果】随着花粉、蜂蜜和维生素浓度的增加,成虫的繁殖力下降;糖醋酒液单一成分和混合液对成虫繁殖和寿命的影响与水分相近;补充供试营养物质和水分对韭菜迟眼蕈蚊的繁殖力均明显高于干燥对照。补充水分的成虫繁殖力最高,产卵率超过70%,单雌平均产卵量达70粒,雌雄成虫寿命最长均超过3 d。土壤湿度对产卵有显著影响,土壤相对湿度为40%和50%时,成虫的落卵率超过25%,落卵量大于480粒,显著高于其它湿度(P<0.05)。【结论】水分是影响韭菜迟眼蕈蚊成虫繁殖和寿命的关键因子,供试的营养物质对韭菜迟眼蕈蚊繁殖没有促进作用,因此在韭菜迟眼蕈蚊成虫盛发期可以通过控制田间土壤湿度来影响韭菜迟眼蕈蚊繁殖。     

An evolutionary model of influenza A with drift and shift

Influenza A virus evolves through two types of evolutionary mechanisms – drift and shift. These two evolutionary mechanisms allow the pathogen to infect us repeatedly, as well as occasionally create pandemics with large morbidity and mortality. Here we introduce a novel model that incorporates both evolutionary mechanisms. This necessitates the modelling of three types of strains – seasonal human strains, bird-to-human transmittable H5N1 strains and evolved pandemic H5N1 strain. We define reproduction and invasion reproduction numbers and use them to establish the presence of dominant and coexistence equilibria. We find that the amino acid substitution structure of human influenza can destabilize the human influenza equilibrium and sustained oscillations are possible. We find that for low levels of infection in domestic birds, these oscillations persist, inducing oscillations in the number of humans infected with the avian flu strain. The oscillations have a period of 365 days, similar to the one that can be observed in the cumulative number of human H5N1 cases reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, we establish some partial global results on the competition of the strains.     

Developmental programming of reproduction and fertility: what is the evidence?

The concept of the foetal/developmental origins of adult disease has been around for ~20 years and from the original epidemiological studies in human populations much more evidence has accumulated from the many studies in animal models. The majority of these have focused upon the role of early dietary intake before conception, through gestation and/or lactation and subsequent interactions with the postnatal environment, e.g. dietary and physical activity exposures. Whilst a number of theoretical models have been proposed to place the experimental data into a biological context, the underlying phenomena remain the same; developmental deficits (of single (micro) nutrients) during critical or sensitive periods of tissue growth alter the developmental pathway to ultimately constrain later functional capacity when the individual is adult. Ageing, without exception, exacerbates any programmed sequelae. Thus, adult phenotypes that have been relatively easy to characterise (e.g. blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, body fat mass) have received most attention in the literature. To date, relatively few studies have considered the effect of differential early environmental exposures on reproductive function and fecundity in predominantly mono-ovular species such as the sheep, cow and human. The available evidence suggests that prenatal insults, undernutrition for example, have little effect on lifetime reproductive capacity despite subtle effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and gonadal progenitor cell complement. The postnatal environment is clearly important, however, since neonatal/adolescent growth acceleration (itself not independent from prenatal experience) has been shown to significantly influence fecundity in farm animals. The present paper will expand these interesting areas of investigation and review the available evidence regarding developmental programming of reproduction and fertility. However, it appears there is little strong evidence to indicate that offspring fertility and reproductive senescence in the human and in farm animal species are overtly affected by prenatal nutrient exposure. Nevertheless, it is clear that the developing gonad is sensitive to its immediate environment but more detailed investigation is required to specifically test the long-term consequences of nutritional perturbations during pregnancy on adult reproductive well-being.