What makes a host profitable? Parasites balance host nutritive resources against immunity

Numerous host qualities can modulate parasite fitness, and among these, host nutritive resources and immunity are of prime importance. Indeed, parasite fitness increases with the amount of nutritive resources extracted from the host body and decreases with host immune response. To maximize fitness, parasites have therefore to balance these two host components. Yet, because host nutritive resources and immunity both increase with host body condition, it is unclear whether parasites perform better on hosts in prime, intermediate, or poor condition. We investigated blood meal size and survival of the ectoparasitic louse fly Crataerina melbae in relation to body condition and cutaneous immune response of their Alpine swift (Apus melba) nestling hosts. Louse flies took a smaller blood meal and lived a shorter period of time when feeding on nestlings that were experimentally food deprived or had their cutaneous immune response boosted with methionine. Consistent with these results, louse fly survival was the highest when feeding on nonexperimental nestlings in intermediate body condition. Our findings emphasize that although hosts in poor condition had a reduced immunocompetence, parasites may have avoided them because individuals in poor condition did not provide adequate resources. These findings highlight the fact that giving host immunocompetence primary consideration can result in a biased appraisal of host-parasite interactions

Controlling the cold collision shift in high precision atomic interferometry

We present here a new method based on a transfer of population by adiabatic passage that allows to prepare cold atomic samples with a well defined ratio of atomic density and atom number. This method is used to perform a measurement of the cold collision frequency shift in a laser cooled cesium clock at the percent level, which makes the evaluation of the cesium fountains accuracy at the $10^{-16}$ level realistic. With an improved set-up, the adiabatic passage would allow measurements of atom number-dependent phase shifts at the $10^{-3}$ level in high precision experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Effects of Common Origin and Common Rearing Environment on Variance in Ectoparasite Load and Phenotype of Nestling Alpine Swifts

Knowledge of the quantitative genetics of resistance to parasitism is key to appraise host evolutionary responses to parasite selection. Here, we studied effects of common origin (i.e. genetic and pre-hatching parental effects) and common rearing environment (i.e. post-hatching parental effects and other environment effects) on variance in ectoparasite load in nestling Alpine swifts (Apusmelba). This colonial bird is intensely parasitized by blood sucking louse-flies that impair nestling development and survival. By cross-fostering half of the hatchlings between pairs of nests, we show strong significant effect of common rearing environment on variance (90.7% in 2002 and 90.9% in 2003) in the number of louse-flies per nestling and no significant effect of common origin on variance in the number of louse-flies per nestling. In contrast, significant effects of common origin were found for all the nestling morphological traits (i.e. body mass, wing length, tail length, fork length and sternum length) under investigation. Hence, our study suggests that genetic and pre-hatching parental effects play little role in the distribution of parasites among nestling Alpine swifts, and thus that nestlings have only limited scope for evolutionary responses against parasites. Our results highlight the need to take into consideration environmental factors, including the evolution of post-hatching parental effects such as nest sanitation, in our understanding of host-parasite relationship

Beak colour dynamically signals changes in fasting status and parasite loads in king penguins

This research was funded by the French Polar Institute (IPEV–Research Program 119) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS-INEE). Field logistic support was provided by Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises. Q.S. was funded by a doctoral fellowship from the Ministère Français de l’Education Supérieur et de la Recherche. We thank all over-wintering assistants: Benoit Gineste, Sylvia Pardonnet, Laureline Durand, Emilie Lefol and Hédi Saadaoui for field work and Emilio Rojas for helpful discussion on the analyses. We apologize to our stick insect (Carausius morosus) for bearing with VAV’s inquisitive curiosity during our debates on color ornaments in king penguins. We sincerely thank the editor and 2 anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous version of the paper.Peer reviewedPostprin

Feshbach resonances in Cesium at Ultra-low Static Magnetic Fields

We have observed Feshbach resonances for 133Cs atoms in two different hyperfine states at ultra-low static magnetic fields by using an atomic fountain clock. The extreme sensitivity of our setup allows for high signal-to-noise-ratio observations at densities of only 2*10^7 cm^{-3}. We have reproduced these resonances using coupled-channels calculations which are in excellent agreement with our measurements. We justify that these are s-wave resonances involving weakly-bound states of the triplet molecular Hamiltonian, identify the resonant closed channels, and explain the observed multi-peak structure. We also describe a model which precisely accounts for the collisional processes in the fountain and which explains the asymmetric shape of the observed Feshbach resonances in the regime where the kinetic energy dominates over the coupling strength.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Correlation in telomere lengths between feathers and blood cells in pied flycatchers

We are grateful to Toni Laaksonen, Pauliina Teerikorpi, Ville Ojala, Wiebke Schuett, Corinna Adrian and Marie Hardenbicker for their help in the field, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on the manuscript. This research was financially supported by the Turku Collegium for Science and Medicine (grant to AS) and Societas Pro Fauna et Flora Fennica, The Kuopio Naturalists’ Society, and Finnish Cultural Foundation Varsinais-Suomi regional fund (grants to TK). The authors declare to have no conflict of interests. Dataset used in this study will be publicly accessible on Figshare https://figshare.com/s/dffa03e1e91c2e57dc13).Peer reviewedPostprin

Estimation du nombre de naissances et structuration de l'offre vaudoise dans le domaine de l'obstétrique, horizons 2020-2030

Le nombre de naissances augmente régulièrement dans le canton de Vaud depuis plusieurs années (7'265 en 2004 à 8'277 en 2012). Selon les projections de Statistique Vaud le nombre de naissances devrait continuer de croitre d'ici 2030. Le suivi des parturientes et les accouchements se répartissent dans les sept services d'obstétrique des hôpitaux publics du canton (EHC, eHnv, CHUV, GHOL, Hôpital du Chablais VD, HIB et Hôpital de la Riviera) et dans deux cliniques privées à Lausanne (la clinique Cecil et la clinique de la Source, cette dernière n'étant pas inscrite sur la liste LaMAL pour ce type de soins). Il est également possible pour les parturientes d'accoucher dans l'une des quatre maisons de naissance (MdN) du canton (Aquila, La Grange Rouge, Lunaissance et Zoé), et une quinzaine de sages-femmes indépendantes (SFI) pratiquent des accouchements à domicile ou en MdN. Ces dernières années, les services d'obstétrique ont signalé des épisodes de saturation, en particulier le CHUV, les contraignant à transférer des parturientes vers des services de gynécologie, vers d'autres hôpitaux du canton ou même vers d'autres cantons. Parallèlement à cela, on note un certain nombre d'évolutions qui concernent directement la prise en charge des accouchements et des soins obstétricaux. Une volonté croissante des femmes de vivre un accouchement moins médicalisé, une augmentation du nombre des césariennes (33,3% en 2013), une augmentation de l'âge moyen à la maternité et le développement de la procréation médicalement assistée (PMA) en sont quelques exemples. C'est dans ce contexte que le service de santé publique (SSP) du canton de Vaud et le département de gynécologie et d'obstétrique du CHUV ont mandaté l'Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive (IUMSP) pour construire différents scénarios concernant l'évolution du nombre de naissances dans le canton de Vaud aux horizons 2020 et 2030 et estimer le volume et la structure de l'offre en soins obstétricaux à prévoir pour répondre à l'évolution des besoins

A Search for Variations of Fundamental Constants using Atomic Fountain Clocks

Over five years we have compared the hyperfine frequencies of 133Cs and 87Rb atoms in their electronic ground state using several laser cooled 133Cs and 87Rb atomic fountains with an accuracy of ~10^{-15}. These measurements set a stringent upper bound to a possible fractional time variation of the ratio between the two frequencies : (d/dt)ln(nu_Rb/nu_Cs)=(0.2 +/- 7.0)*10^{-16} yr^{-1} (1 sigma uncertainty). The same limit applies to a possible variation of the quantity (mu_Rb/mu_Cs)*alpha^{-0.44}, which involves the ratio of nuclear magnetic moments and the fine structure constant.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 table submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Catch-up growth strategies differ between body structures: interactions between age and structure-specific growth in wild nestling Alpine swifts

1. Little is known on the occurrence and magnitude of faster than normal (catch-up) growth in response to periods of undernutrition in the wild, and the extent to which different body structures compensate and over what timescales is poorly understood. 2. We investigated catch-up growth in nestling Alpine Swifts, Apus melba, by comparing nestling growth trajectories in response to a naturally occurring 1-week period of inclement weather and undernutrition with growth of nestlings reared in a good year. 3. In response to undernutrition, nestlings exhibited a hierarchy of tissues preservation and compensation, with body mass being restored quickly after the end of the period of undernutrition, acceleration of skeletal growth occurring later in development, and compensation in wing length occurring mostly due to a prolongation of growth and delayed fledging. 4. The effect of undernutrition and subsequent catch-up growth was age-dependent, with older nestlings being more resilient to undernutrition, and in turn having less need to compensate later in the development. 5. This shows that young in a free-living bird population can compensate in body mass and body size for a naturally occurring period of undernutrition, and that the timing and extent of compensation varies with age and between body structures

The oxidative debt of fasting : evidence for short to medium-term costs of advanced fasting in adult king penguins

This research was funded by the French Polar Institute (IPEV–Research Program 119) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS-INEE). We are especially grateful to Dominic L. Cram and one anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on the paper. Field logistic support was provided by Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises. QS was funded by a doctoral fellowship from the Ministère Français de l’Education Supérieur et de la Recherche.Peer reviewedPublisher PD