Fluctuating asymmetry could be reliable proxy for oxidative stress in vertebrates

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1 Servei d'Ecopatologia de Fauna Salvatge (SEFaS), Wildlife Health Service - Departament de Medicina i Cirugia Animal, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ​ 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
2 Department of Animal Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Regional Campus of International Excellence Mare Nostrum, 30100, Espinardo, Murcia, Spain
3 Department of Ecosystem and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, 3330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
4 Biodiversity Conservation And Applied Biology, Estación Biológica de Doñana, CSIC, 41092 , Sevilla, Spain
5 Department of Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Campus of International Excellence Mare Nostrum, Universidad de Murcia, Espinardo, 30100, Murcia, Spain
6 ​ Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitario de Santiago, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal
7 Servei d'Ecopatologia de Fauna Salvatge (SEFaS), Wildlife Health Service - Departament de Medicina i Cirugia Animal, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ​​ 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.616v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Ecology, Evolutionary Studies, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology
Keywords
Ecological Indicators, Developmental Instability, Physiological Stress, Sus scrofa
Copyright
© 2014 Canovas et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Canovas M, Mentaberre GG, Tvarijonaviciute A, Casas-Díaz E, Navarro N, Lavín S, Soriguer R, Candela MG, Serrano Ferron E. 2014. Fluctuating asymmetry could be reliable proxy for oxidative stress in vertebrates. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e616v1

Abstract

The study of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) in living organisms has produced contradictory results over the past few decades. Though the protocol for measuring FA is firmly established, the sources of FA remain unclear in many cases. Our goal is to study the relationship between FA and both the concentration of biomarkers of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the body condition in a medium-sized mammal, the European wild boar (Sus scrofa). Using a Partial Least Squares regression (PLSr) we found a positive significant relationship between oxidative stress and FA but a negative relationship between oxidative stress and body condition of boar. Our results may suggest that FA can be used to assess the physiological cost associated with oxidative stress in mammals.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

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