Beauty spot on male birds can indicate resistance to bird flu
21 March 2006
by Richard Conan-Davies
| The size of the spot on the forehead of male collared flycatchers reflects the effectiveness of their immune system to combat viruses like avian influenza or bird flu. This is according to recent research by biologists at the Univeristy of Upsala. Måns Andersson, who led the research team explained " More and more evidence indicates that the most changeable part of the environment consists of parasites, bacteria and viruses. All of these, especially viruses, evolve more rapidly than the hosts whose resources they live off of. The host will therefore always be in an important evolutionary race against its diseases," Previous similar studies indicated that male Gotlandian collared flycatchers with few dangerous blood parasites have larger forehead spots. Now in this new study males that were vaccinated against Newcastle virus produced more antibodies if they had large forehead spots. |
image: europa.eu.int |
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