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Cited by 513

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 27 of the 27 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Immune activity elevates energy expenditure of house sparrows: a link between direct and indirect costs?

Open access
Martin, Lynn B., Scheuerlein, Alex, Wikelski, Martin·2003·Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2002.2185
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Abstract

The activation of an immune response is beneficial for organisms but may also have costs that affect fitness. Documented immune costs include those associated with acquisition of special nutrients, as well as immunopathology or autoimmunity. Here, we test whether an experimental induction of the immune system with a non-pathological stimulant can elevate energy turnover in passerine birds. We injected phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), a commonly used mitogen that activates the cell-mediated immune response, into the wing web of house sparrows, Passer domesticus. We then examined energetic costs resulting from this immune activity and related those costs to other physiological activities. We found that PHA injection significantly elevated resting metabolic rate (RMR) of challenged sparrows relative to saline controls. We calculated the total cost of this immune activity to be ca. 4.20 kJ per day (29% RMR), which is equivalent to the cost of production of half of an egg (8.23 kJ egg(-1)) in this species. We suggest that immune activity in wild passerines increases energy expenditure, which in turn may influence important life-history characteristics such as clutch size, timing of breeding or the scheduling of moult.

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Metadata

Authors
Martin, L. B., Scheuerlein, A., & Wikelski, M.
Venue
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
2003-01-22
Volume
270
Issue
1511
Pages
153-158
ISSN
  • 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
  • 0962-8452
  • 1471-2954
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2002.2185
OpenAlex
W2145484835
Cited by
513
References
27
FWCI
30.53
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Immune activity elevates energy expenditure of house sparrows: a link between direct and indirect costs? https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1098/rspb.2002.2185
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Martin, L. B., Scheuerlein, A., & Wikelski, M. (2003). Immune activity elevates energy expenditure of house sparrows: a link between direct and indirect costs? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2185

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.