Immune challenge reduces begging behavior and modifies begging call structure in spotless starling nestlings

Symptoms of illness offer insights into an organism’s condition, altering social signals that affect others' behavior. Nestling birds employ begging signals to solicit parental care, but the extent to which begging reflects nestling health beyond hunger remains controversial. We investigated how experimentally induced changes in health affect begging signals in spotless starling (Sturnus unicolor) nestlings. To alter health status, we administered an immune challenge by injecting lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or a control substance (PBS) and observed begging behavior under controlled food deprivation conditions. LPS-treated nestlings exhibited delayed gaping, reduced stretching, and less begging time compared to control nestlings. Moreover, LPS-treated nestlings produced calls with higher spectral entropy, particularly when deprived of food for longer. Our findings indicate that begging signals are sensitive to induced sickness. However, addressing mechanistic issues is crucial for effective..., Experimental design
We conducted the study in a nest-box breeding population of spotless starlings located in central Spain (Soto del Real, Madrid). In our study population, spotless starlings, medium-sized colonial passerines, typically have two asynchronous clutches per season, with a modal clutch size of 5 eggs (López-Rull et al. 2007; Salaberria et al. 2014). We determined the hatching date of the nests through regular inspections.
We chose 25 nests from the first wave of clutches in the breeding season. On the day before the experiment, at the age of 5 days, we selected two chicks of intermediate-mass rank from each brood, ensuring that at least two nestlings remained to prevent parental desertion. The nestlings were transported in a warm container to the laboratory, where they were placed together in artificial nest cups with controlled temperature (approximately 35°C) and humidity (45%). The nestlings were familiarized with a begging stimulus, which was a playback of a parental f..., , # Immune challenge reduces begging behavior and modifies begging call structure in spotless starling nestlings

Parejo-Pulido, D, Redondo, T, Pérez-Rodríguez, L.

Contact: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

Datasets are saved as .txt files. Missing data are indicated as “NA\".

### File list

* Parejo-Pulido_et_al_Pilot: data of nestling temperature according to the treatment.
* Parejo-Pulido_et_al_mass: data of nestling mass and food consumed according to the treatment.
* Parejo-Pulido_et_al_posture: data of nestling postural begging performance.
* Parejo-Pulido_et_al_acoustic: data of nestling acoustic begging performance.

### Description of the files

#### Parejo-Pulido\_et\_al\_Pilot.txt

This file contains the data used to analyze the effect of the LPS or Control treatment on nestlings' cloacal temperature in time.

Columns:

* \"nest\": identification code of nest.
* \"ID\": identification code of nestling, which combines the nest of origin (e.g. 309) and the identifier ...