Survival of adult barn owls is linked to corticosterone levels

Abstract

Glucocorticoid hormones, such as corticosterone, are fundamental in the translation of external stimuli into physiological adjustments that promote the survival of an organism in face of changes in its environment. At baseline levels, corticosterone is crucial in regulating daily life metabolism and energy expenditure, whereas the acute corticosterone response promotes short-term physiological and behavioral responses to unpredictable environmental challenges. Given their different physiological effects and their role in mediating fitness components, it is still unclear whether and how inter-individual variation in baseline corticosterone levels and acute stress-response levels can affect the survival of organisms. We used 13 years of capture-recapture and dead recovery data combined with 11 years of corticosterone measurements taken on breeding barn owls (Tyto alba) to investigate how survival probability varies in relation to baseline and stress-induced corticosterone levels. Our study shows that males with a higher level of both baseline and stress-induced corticosterone levels have a higher probability of surviving than individuals with lower corticosterone levels. In females, survival probability was higher in individuals presenting elevated stress-induced corticosterone levels but was not significantly associated to baseline corticosterone levels. Our results suggest that in the barn owl the stress-induced corticosterone response is a better proxy of adult survival than baseline corticosterone levels. Further studies investigating the link between corticosterone levels and different fitness components as well as the environmental factors (e.g. weather, development conditions, disease and predation risk) leading to such endocrine phenotypes are needed to identify the costs and benefits of presenting high and low corticosterone profiles.