Do stable isotopes reflect nutritional stress? Results from a laboratory experiment on song sparrows.

Stable isotope analysis is an increasingly valuable tool in ecological studies and shows promise as a measure of nutritional stress in wild animals. Thus far, however, the only studies on endotherms that have conclusively shown changes in delta(15)N and delta(13)C values in response to nutritional stress were conducted on fasting animals and animals growing under extreme levels of food restriction. We conducted a laboratory experiment to test whether delta(15)N and delta(13)C values provide a general index of nutritional stress. We compared the isotopic composition of whole blood, liver, muscle and feathers between two groups of juvenile song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) hand-reared in captivity under identical conditions except for feeding regime. To verify that our experimental treatment induced a biologically meaningful level of nutritional stress, we simultaneously measured the effects on physiology, growth and development at multiple scales. While food-restricted birds were physiologically stressed, physically smaller, and showed poorer growth and brain development compared to ad libitum-fed birds, there was no effect of feeding regime on either delta(15)N or delta(13)C values in any tissue. Instead of a continuum where the level of change in (15)N or (13)C contents corresponds to the level of nutritional stress, we suggest there may be a threshold level of nutritional stress below which such isotopic changes are likely to be negligible.

Early nutritional stress impairs development of a song-control brain region in both male and female juvenile song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) at the onset of song learning.

Birdsong is a sexually selected trait and is often viewed as an indicator of male quality. The developmental stress hypothesis proposes a model by which song could be an indicator; the time during early development, when birds learn complex songs and/or local variants of song, is of rapid development and nutritional stress. Birds that cope best with this stress may better learn to produce the most effective songs. The developmental stress hypothesis predicts that early food restriction should impair development of song-control brain regions at the onset of song learning. We examined the effect of food restriction on song-control brain regions in fledgling (both sexes, 23-26 days old) song sparrows (Melospiza melodia). Food restriction selectively reduced HVC volume in both sexes. In addition, sex differences were evident in all three song-control regions. This study lends further support to a growing body of literature documenting a variety of behavioural, physiological and neural detriments in several songbird species resulting from early developmental stress.