Department of Biology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA.
Biol Lett. 2010 Aug 23;6(4):552-4. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.1078. Epub 2010 Feb 17.
Opportunities to investigate selection in free-living species during a naturally occurring epidemic are rare; however, we assessed innate immunocompetence in Florida scrub-jays before the population suffered the greatest over-winter mortality in 20 years of study. Propitiously, three months prior to the epidemic, we had sampled a number of male breeders to evaluate a suite of physiological measures that are commonly used to estimate the overall health-state of an individual. There was a significant, positive selection gradient for both Escherichia coli bacterial killing capability and body condition, suggesting that directional selection had occurred upon each of these traits during the disease epidemic.
在自然发生的传染病期间,有机会调查自由生活物种中的选择的情况很少;然而,在 20 年的研究中,佛罗里达州灌丛鸦的种群经历了有史以来最严重的越冬死亡率之前,我们评估了它们的先天免疫能力。幸运的是,在疫情爆发前三个月,我们对一些雄性繁殖者进行了采样,以评估一系列常用于估计个体整体健康状况的生理指标。大肠杆菌杀菌能力和身体状况都存在显著的正选择梯度,这表明在疾病流行期间,这些特征都发生了定向选择。