Journal
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY
Volume 70, Issue 5, Pages 809-820Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00265-016-2091-5
Keywords
Biomarker; Life-history; Oxidative damage; Physiology
Categories
Funding
- Research Foundation of Flanders
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In recent years, behavioural ecologists have taken to studying oxidative stress in free-ranging organisms because it has been proposed as an important mediator of life-history trade-offs. A plethora of methodological approaches to quantify biomarkers associated with oxidative stress exist, each one with its own strengths and weaknesses. The d-ROMs test has emerged as one of the favoured assays in ecological studies because of its reliability, sensitivity to specific perturbations of the organism's oxidative balance and medical and ecological relevance. Criticisms have been, however, raised about its specificity for oxidative damage. In this article, I have reviewed basic information about the d-ROMs test, its validation, the methodological mistakes made in the studies that attempted to criticise this assay and the application of this assay to ecological studies of oxidative stress. All the direct and indirect evidences show that the d-ROMs test is a valuable assay for the quantification of plasma or serum primary (or early) oxidative damage molecules and, possibly, of other biological matrices and provides ecologically relevant information.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available