Journal
BIOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 6, Issue 6, Pages 846-849Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0376
Keywords
corticosterone; fitness; quality; albatross
Categories
Funding
- French Polar Institute (IPEV)
- Marie-Curie fellowship
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Office of Polar Programs (OPP) [0750540] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Measuring individual quality in vertebrates is difficult. Focusing on allostasis mechanisms may be useful because they are functionally involved in the ability of an individual to survive and reproduce in its environment. Thus, a rise in stress hormones levels (corticosterone) occurs when an organism has to cope with challenging environmental conditions. This has recently led to the proposal of the 'cort-fitness hypothesis', which suggests that elevated baseline corticosterone levels should be found in individuals of poor quality that have difficulty coping with their environment. We tested this hypothesis by comparing an integrative measure of individual quality to baseline corticosterone in blackbrowed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophrys). We found that individual baseline corticosterone levels were related to individual quality and highly repeatable from one breeding season to the next. Importantly, this relationship was found in males, but not in females. Therefore, we suggest that the relationship between quality and baseline corticosterone levels may depend on the environmental and energetic constraints that individuals have to cope with.
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