Experimental cooling during incubation leads to reduced innate immunity and body condition in nestling tree swallows

Abstract

Nest microclimate can have strong effects that can carry over to later life-history stages. We experimentally cooled the nests of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor). Females incubating in cooled nests reduced incubation time and allowed egg temperatures to drop, leading to extended incubation periods. We partially cross-fostered nestlings to test carry-over effects of cooling during incubation on nestling innate constitutive immunity, assessed through bacteria killing ability (BKA) of blood. Nestlings that had been cooled as eggs showed a lower ability to kill bacteria than control nestlings, regardless of the treatment of their foster mother. However, there was no effect of treatment of rearing females on nestling BKA in control nestlings, even though cooled females made significantly fewer feeding visits than did control females. This suggests that the effect of cooling occurred during incubation and was not due to carry-over effects on nestling condition. Nestlings that were exposed to experimental cooling as embryos had lower residual body mass and absolute body mass at all four ages measured. Our results indicate that environmental conditions and trade-offs experienced during one stage of development can have important carry-over effects on later life-history stages.