Cellular and humoral immunity in a wild mammal: Variation with age & sex and association with overwinter survival.

ABSTRACT: Immune defenses are expected to be crucial for survival under the considerable parasite pressures experienced by wild animals. However, our understanding of the association between immunity and fitness in nature remains limited due to both the complexity of the vertebrate immune system and the often-limited availability of immune reagents in nonmodel organisms. Here, we use methods and reagents developed by veterinary researchers for domestic ungulates on blood samples collected from a wild Soay sheep population, to evaluate an unusually broad panel of immune parameters. Our evaluation included different innate and acquired immune cell types as well as nematode parasite-specific antibodies of different isotypes. We test how these markers correlate with one another, how they vary with age-g

SUBMITTER: Watson RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5192870 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature