In the literature on human mate choice, masculine facial morphology is often proposed to be an intersexual signal of heritable immunocompetence, and hence an important component of men's attractiveness. This hypothesis has received considerable research attention, and is increasingly treated as plausible and well supported. In this article, we propose that the strength of the evidence for the i...

Knowledge about how parasites choose their hosts is scarce and incomplete. Recent work has primarily focused on host health (i.e. immunocompetence) whereas ecological factors have been largely neglected. Here we investigate whether the immunocompetence, the nutritional condition or body size of nestling European bee-eaters Merops apiaster are used as parameters for habitat choice of the haemato...

It is generally believed that resource holding potential reliably reflects male quality, but empirical evidence showing this is scarce. Here we show that the outcome of male-male competition may predict male immunocompetence in the territorial damselfly, Calopteryx virgo (Odonata: Calopterygidae). We staged contests between 27 pairs of males and found that winners of the contests showed higher ...

Abstract The spleen is the most commonly injured organ in blunt abdominal trauma. Patients with these injuries are increasingly being managed nonoperatively, use of Splenic Artery Embolisation (SAE). Many patients receive lifelong prophylactic antibiotics as though they were asplenic. aim to seek robust evidence splenic vascular integrity and immunocompetence following SAE, consider whether ant...

The immunological responses of an animal are changing continually in response to perceived environmental changes. This is because the genetic background, the lifelong environment of animals and their interaction greatly influence immunological responsiveness. An animal's genetic background influences all factors related to immunocompetence. Among these are age of onset of immunocompetence, resp...

Economics of poultry production can be improved by reducing input on health care (major investment) and increasing production. It necessitates evaluation and exploitation of immunocompetence traits of germplasm. An investigation was carried out on 174 Kadaknath native chickens, maintained at this institute to evaluate immunocompetence profile. Data on three traits viz., antibody response to she...

BACKGROUND cological immunology requires techniques to reliably measure immunocompetence in wild vertebrates. The PHA-skin test, involving subcutaneous injection of a mitogen (phytohemagglutinin, PHA) and measurement of subsequent swelling as a surrogate of T-cell mediated immunocompetence, has been the test of choice due to its practicality and ease of use in the field. However, mechanisms inv...

Estimates of phenoloxidase (PO) activity have been suggested as a useful indicator of immunocompetence in arthropods, with the idea that high PO activity would indicate high immunocompetence against parasites and pathogens. Here, we test for variation in PO activity among clones of the planktonic crustacean Daphnia magna and its covariation with susceptibility to infections from four different ...