(Press-News.org) For female North American barn swallows, looking good pays healthy dividends.
A new study conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder and involving Cornell University shows the outward appearance of female barn swallows, specifically the hue of their chestnut-colored breast feathers, has an influence on their physiological health.
It has been known that in North American barn swallows, both males and females, those with darker ventral feathers have higher reproductive success than those with lighter colors, said Cornell Senior Research Associate Maren Vitousek, who led the new research while a postdoctoral researcher at CU-Boulder. Although there is evidence that breast feather color is significantly influenced by genetics, melanin-based plumage color like that in barn swallows also has been tied to social status and even to circulating testosterone, she said.
The new study showed that both naturally darker barn swallow females and those with artificially darkened breast feathers also had lower levels of oxidative damage, which could ultimately make the birds healthier. Oxidative stress results when the production of harmful metabolites known as free radicals exceeds antioxidant defenses in the birds, which can lead to DNA, protein and fat damage in the birds, said Vitousek.
"Intriguingly, females whose feathers were darkened to resemble 'attractive' birds rapidly adopted the physiological state of darker birds, decreasing their level of oxidative damage," said Vitousek. "These results suggest the appearance of an individual may be an under-appreciated driver of physiological health."
A paper on the subject by Vitousek, CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Rebecca Safran and Indiana University Research Associate Rosemary Stewart appeared in the Aug. 21 online edition of Biology Letters, a publication of the Royal Society in London. The National Science Foundation, the Max Planck Institute in Radolfzell, Germany, and CU-Boulder funded the study.
A 2008 study led by CU-Boulder's Safran showed the testosterone of male North American barn swallows skyrocketed early in the breeding season when their breast colors were artificially enhanced by researchers, indicating the clothes -- or in this case, the feathers -- make the man. The study was the first to show significant feedback between physical appearance and physiology in birds, with implications for better understanding the ecology and evolution of physical signals such as feather color.
"Features of an individual bird's appearance are often signals of a physiological condition, health and status, but little is known about how these relationships are formed," said Safran of CU-Boulder's ecology and evolutionary biology department. "The twist in our new study is that the same color manipulation in males and females induced opposite effects on testosterone: It goes up in darkened males and goes down in darkened females."
For the new barn swallow study, Vitousek, Safran and a team of undergraduate and graduate students captured 60 female barn swallows with mist nets in Boulder and Jefferson counties near Denver. Thirty of the birds were used as the control group, while the other 30 had their ventral plumage darkened using a non-toxic marker. The testosterone, oxidative damage and antioxidant levels of all birds were measured at that time. The birds were then released back into the wild.
Between one and three weeks later, 19 of the artificially darkened females and 17 birds from the control group were recaptured, re-tested for testosterone, oxidative damage and antioxidant levels and then released back into the wild, said Vitousek.
INFORMATION:
Editors: For photos illustrating the barn swallow study visit http://photography.colorado.edu/res/sites/news/ and type "barn swallows" into the search box.
Contact:
Maren Vitousek, 607-254-4529
mnv6@cornell.edu
Rebecca Safran, 303-735-1495
Rebecca.Safran@colorado.edu
Jim Scott, 303-492-3114
Jim.Scott@colorado.edu
Hue of barn swallow breast feathers can influence their health, says study by CU-Boulder, Cornell
Swallows with artificially darkened breast feathers show decreased levels of oxidative damage to DNA, proteins and fats
2013-08-21
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Research breakthrough: Impaired autophagy associated with age-related macular degeneration
2013-08-21
A new study published in the prestigious PLoS One journal changes our understanding of the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The researchers found that degenerative changes and loss of vision are caused by impaired function of the lysosomal clean-up mechanism, or autophagy, in the fundus of the eye. The results open new avenues for the treatment of the dry form of AMD, which currently lacks an efficient treatment. The University of Eastern Finland played a leading role in the study, which also involved research groups from Italy, Germany and Hungary.
AMD ...
Better insight into molecular interactions
2013-08-21
"Basically we are looking at how atoms and molecules interact in biochemical materials in solution", says Professor Dr. Emad Flear Aziz, leader of the Young Investigator Group for Functional Materials in Solution at the HZB and Professor at Freie Universität Berlin. Their now published work is based on a discovery by Aziz' team made three years before: They then analyzed samples with x-ray spectroscopy and observed the disappearance of photons at some specific photon energy. These results have been replicated by other teams worldwide. To explain this effect, Aziz and colleagues ...
Playing video games can boost brain power
2013-08-21
Certain types of video games can help to train the brain to become more agile and improve strategic thinking, according to scientists from Queen Mary University of London and University College London (UCL).
The researchers recruited 72 volunteers and measured their 'cognitive flexibility' described as a person's ability to adapt and switch between tasks, and think about multiple ideas at a given time to solve problems.
Two groups of volunteers were trained to play different versions of a real-time strategy game called StarCraft, a fast-paced game where players have ...
Epic ocean voyages of baby corals revealed
2013-08-21
The study, by researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Miami, will help predict how coral reef distributions may change in response to changing oceans.
Coral are well known as the colourful plant-like structures which form coral reefs. However, each coral is actually a colony of anemone-like animals, which start out life as tiny, free-floating larvae about the size of a full-stop. Using a computer model, the researchers simulated how these young corals disperse in the world's oceans.
Coral reefs, a vital cultural and economic resource for many of the world's ...
First scientific method to authenticate world's costliest coffee
2013-08-21
The world's most expensive coffee can cost $80 a cup, and scientists now are reporting development of the first way to verify authenticity of this crème de la crème, the beans of which come from the feces of a Southeast Asian animal called a palm civet. Their study appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Eiichiro Fukusaki and colleagues point out that Kopi Luwak (Indonesian for "civet coffee") is the world's costliest coffee, often fetching $150-$200 per pound. Palm civets eat coffee berries, digest the soft fruit surrounding the bean and excrete the ...
New tests for determining health and environmental effects of nanomaterials
2013-08-21
A group of international experts from government, industry and academia have concluded that alternative testing strategies (ATSs) that don't rely on animals will be needed to cope with the wave of new nanomaterials emerging from the boom in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Their consensus statement from a workshop on the topic appears in the journal ACS Nano.
Andre Nel and colleagues explain that many new engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are appearing in laboratories, factories and consumer products as a result of advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology. These fields ...
Viewing Fukushima in the cold light of Chernobyl
2013-08-21
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster spread significant radioactive contamination over more than 3500 square miles of the Japanese mainland in the spring of 2011. Now several recently published studies of Chernobyl, directed by Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Møller of the Université Paris-Sud, are bringing a new focus on just how extensive the long-term effects on Japanese wildlife might be.
Their work underscores the idea that, in the wake of the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, there have been many lost opportunities to better understand ...
Home cooking, traffic are sources of key air pollutants from China
2013-08-21
Almost 80 percent of air pollution involving soot that spreads from China over large areas of East Asia — impacting human health and fostering global warming — comes from city traffic and other forms of fossil-fuel combustion, such as home cooking with coal briquettes. That's the conclusion of a study in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology, which resolves long-standing questions about sources of air pollution responsible for Asia's infamous atmospheric brown clouds.
Örjan Gustafsson and colleagues from China, South Korea and the United States point out in ...
First update in a century in testing drugs for elemental impurities
2013-08-21
For the first time in more than 100 years, drug and dietary supplement manufacturers are updating the tests used to ensure that their products contain safe levels of metal impurities, and the stringent new requirements, instruments and costs are the topic of the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
Ann Thayer, C&EN senior correspondent, explains that in 1905, the nonprofit standards-setting U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) first introduced ...
Psychotherapy lags as evidence goes unheeded
2013-08-21
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Psychotherapy has issues. Evidence shows that some psychosocial treatments work well for common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression and that consumers often prefer them to medication. Yet the use of psychotherapy is on a clear decline in the United States. In a set of research review papers in the November issue of the journal Clinical Psychology Review, now available online, psychologists put psychotherapy on the proverbial couch to examine why it's foundering.
Their diagnosis? Much as in many human patients, psychotherapy ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Using artificial intelligence to calculate the heart’s biological age through ECG data predicts increased risk of mortality and cardiovascular events
“She loves me, she loves me not”: physical forces encouraged evolution of multicellular life, scientists propose
The hidden superconducting state in NbSe₂: shedding layers, gaining insights
New AI models possible game-changers within protein science and healthcare
Highly accurate blood test diagnoses Alzheimer’s disease, measures extent of dementia
Mind the seismic gap: Understanding earthquake types in Guerrero, Mexico
One hour’s screen use after going to bed increases your risk of insomnia by 59%, scientists find
Canada needs to support health research at home and abroad
Cannabis use disorder among insured pregnant women in the US between 2015-2020
Education system needs overhaul to support school anxiety, psychologists say
Play “humanizes” pediatric care and should be key feature of a child-friendly NHS – report
Stricter oversight needed as financial misconduct drives risk-taking in banking
Cardiac arrest during long-distance running races
Preventable cardiac deaths during marathons are down, Emory study finds
New study finds peripheral artery disease often underdiagnosed and undertreated; opportunity to improve treatments, lower death rates
Use of antidepressant medication linked to substantial increase in risk of sudden cardiac death
Atrial fibrillation diagnosed in midlife is linked to a 21% increased risk of dementia at any age and a 36% higher risk of early-onset dementia
Mode of death in patients with heart failure with mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction
Intravenous ferric carboxymaltose in heart failure with iron deficiency
Artificial intelligence in the prevention of sudden death
Oral semaglutide vastly reduces heart attacks, strokes in people with type 2 diabetes
Prothrombin complex concentrate vs frozen plasma for coagulopathic bleeding in cardiac surgery
Who needs a statin? New study compares prescribing recommendations based on traditional risk factors vs. coronary artery calcium scoring
Finerenone and atrial fibrillation in heart failure
Low coronary artery calcium score is associated with an excellent prognosis regardless of a person’s age, new study finds
Groundbreaking consensus statement on conduction system pacing released: a major milestone in the evolution of pacing therapy
Nuclear monitoring system suggests landslide cut off internet in west Africa
PNNL scientist elected AAAS fellow
American College of Cardiology recognizes five JACC Rocket Fuel Consultants
American College of Cardiology, Association of Black Cardiologists recognize three Merck Research Fellowship awardees
[Press-News.org] Hue of barn swallow breast feathers can influence their health, says study by CU-Boulder, CornellSwallows with artificially darkened breast feathers show decreased levels of oxidative damage to DNA, proteins and fats