Publications by authors named "Ashley C Love"
Gut microbiota regulate multiple aspects of host health, including metabolism and the development of the immune system. However, we still know relatively little about how the gut microbiota influences host responses to parasitism in wild organisms, particularly whether host-microbiota interactions contribute to variation in parasitism across host species. The goal of this study was to determine the role of gut microbiota in shaping how birds respond to nest parasites and investigate whether this relationship varies between host species.
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- - The Nest Parasite Community Science Project aims to explore how food supplementation affects eastern bluebirds and their nest parasites, involving input from 69 stewards in 26 states between 2018 and 2021.
- - Findings show that providing mealworms or suet increased the fledging success of bluebirds, despite the presence of common parasites like blow flies, fleas, and mites in the nests.
- - The influence of food supplementation on parasite prevalence varied by year and location, with more stewards feeding bluebirds in the southern U.S., a trend that contrasts with other scientific projects.
Macronutrients play a vital role in host immunity and can influence host-pathogen dynamics, potentially through dietary effects on gut microbiota. To increase our understanding of how dietary macronutrients affect physiology and gut microbiota and investigate whether feeding behaviour is influenced by an immune threat, we conducted two experiments. First, we determined whether zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) exhibit shifts in physiology and gut microbiota when fed diets differing in macronutrient ratios.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHost-associated microbiota can be affected by factors related to environmental change, such as urbanization and invasive species. For example, urban areas often affect food availability for animals, which can change their gut microbiota. Invasive parasites can also influence microbiota through competition or indirectly through a change in the host immune response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile avoidance of sick conspecifics is common among animals, little is known about how detecting diseased conspecifics influences an organism's physiological state, despite its implications for disease transmission dynamics. The avian pathogen (MG) causes obvious visual signs of infection in domestic canaries (), including lethargy and conjunctivitis, making this system a useful tool for investigating how the perception of cues from sick individuals shapes immunity in healthy individuals. We tested whether disease-related social information can stimulate immune responses in canaries housed in visual contact with either healthy or MG-infected conspecifics.
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- The Deepwater Horizon oil spill led to around 100,000 bird deaths, but estimates often overlook internal damage from crude oil ingestion.
- A study using zebra finches showed that ingesting crude oil affects cytokine expression and disease defense mechanisms, with changes in immune responses and sickness behaviors observed.
- The findings suggest that oil ingestion impacts birds' health and survival beyond visible oiling, highlighting the need for comprehensive assessments of environmental disasters' effects on wildlife.
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- Wild-caught animals often experience physiological changes related to stress and reproduction when taken into captivity, unlike those bred in labs.
- A study on house sparrows examined how captivity time affects the expression of specific stress and reproductive-associated genes in their brains, focusing on genes like CRH, GnIH, and the glucocorticoid receptor.
- Results showed that certain gene expressions adapted after 24 and 45 days in captivity, but by 66 days, adaptation levels matched those of wild-caught birds, indicating neuroendocrine adjustments occur faster than broader physiological changes.
Studies using wild animals in laboratory-based research require bringing wild-captured organisms into a novel setting, which can have long-lasting impacts on physiology and behavior. In several species, captivity stimulates stress hormone production and can alter immune function. Despite this, there is little consensus on how captivity influences stress hormone regulation, or if captivity-induced changes in stress hormone production and regulation mediate changes in immune function.
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- Glucocorticoid stress hormones, particularly corticosterone (CORT), influence energy mobilization and immune regulation in vertebrates, prompting the study of their interaction with bacterial infections in house finches.
- The research found that infection with Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) increased CORT levels significantly in female finches on day 5 post-infection, and those with more severe disease exhibited the highest CORT concentrations.
- While infected house finches displayed reduced activity levels, there was no direct correlation between CORT levels and sickness behaviors; further investigation is needed to confirm these sex-specific effects and the role of CORT in moderating inflammation during infection.