Body temperature changes during simulated bacterial infection in a songbird: fever at night and hypothermia during the day

摘要: Although fever (a closely regulated increase in body temperature response to infection) typically is beneficial, it energetically costly and may induce detrimentally high temperatures. This can the susceptibility energetic bottlenecks risks of overheating some organisms. Accordingly, could be particularly interesting study small birds, which have comparatively metabolic rates high, variable We therefore investigated two aspects other sickness behaviours (circadian variation, dose dependence) a songbird, zebra finch. injected lipopolysaccharide (LPS) at beginning either day or night, subsequently monitored temperature, mass change food intake for duration response. found pronounced circadian variation LPS injection, manifested by (dose-dependent) hypothermia during but night. resulted peak being relatively similar Day-to-night differences might explained context temperature: songbirds daytime that augmented substantial heat production peaks activity. require trade-off between benefit risk overheating. In contrast, when lower less variable, used mitigate infection. suggest infection dependent promote survival according individual demands time