Rapid loss of maternal immunity and increase in environmentally mediated antibody generation in urban gulls.

ABSTRACT: Monitoring pathogen circulation in wildlife sentinel populations can help to understand and predict the spread of disease at the wildlife-livestock-human interface. Immobile young provide a useful target population for disease surveillance, since they can be easily captured for sampling and their levels of antibodies against infectious agents can provide an index of localized circulation. However, early-life immune responses include both maternally-derived antibodies and antibodies resulting from exposure to pathogens, and disentangling these two processes requires understanding their individual dynamics. We conducted an egg-swapping experiment in an urban-nesting sentinel seabird, the yellow-legged gull, and measured antibody levels against three pathogens of interest (avian influenza vir

SUBMITTER: Lamb JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10884025 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature