Meeting Abstract
Feathers are essential for flight, thermoregulation, water repellency, and visual communication in birds. Feather growth is an energetically costly process, and when feather growth occurs concurrently with pathogenic exposure, trade-offs in resource allocation may occur. Avian infections have been shown to alter feather development; specifically length, strength, and structure can be negatively impacted by infectious diseases. In this experiment, nestling house sparrows were inoculated at 7 days of age with one of two lineages (A or B) of an arthropod borne alphavirus called Buggy Creek virus (BCRV). An additional group received a saline injection and served as a negative control group. Birds from all three treatments were euthanized 2,3, or 4 days post inoculation (DPI). Primary (p1, p5, p9), secondary (s1, s5), and rectrix (r1, r6) feathers were obtained post mortem. Feather length, barb density, and barbule density were determined for each feather. Although peak viremia levels were similar between BCRV-A and B groups, the lineages exhibited different effects on feather development. On 4 DPI, birds in the BCRV-A treatment group exhibited significantly shorter p1, p5, and average primary feather lengths compared to both BCRV-B and control groups. Barbule densities of s5 and primary feathers were significantly higher in BCRV-B infected nestlings 4 DPI compared to the control group. No significant differences in barbule density were recorded for the BCRV-A treatment group. The results of this experiment indicate that feather quality measurements such as feather length and barbule density could be used as markers for infection effects in developing birds. The impacts of altered feather length and barbule density on fledging success should be further investigated to determine the effects of altered feather development on survival.
