Honest Sexual Signalling Mediated By Parasite And Testosterone Effects On Oxidative Balance

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 03 Dec 2008 - 7:00 PDT

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Oxidative stress is a physiological condition whereby essential biomolecules are damaged. There has been much interest in understanding the interrelationships of oxidative stress with disease, parasite infections and ageing.

Here we describe how oxidative stress can explain the evolution of animal ornaments, by being a cost of displaying more exaggerated signals, and thus maintaining the honesty of signals.

In a wild bird, the red grouse, we showed that parasites and testosterone cause oxidative stress and influence ornamentation proportionally to the amount of oxidative stress experienced.

We thereby provide support for a new mechanism explaining honest signalling of health.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences