Phylogenetic relationships of immune function and oxidative physiology with sexual selection and parental effort in male and female birds

Sexual differences in physiology are widely regarded as potential proximate mechanisms that underlie sex differences in mortality, life history, and disease risk of vertebrates. However, little is known about the causes of sex-specific variation in physiology. Sexual selection and parental workload are two key components suggested to play a role. Theory predicts that, within males, species with stronger male sexual selection (greater sexual dichromatism and more frequent social polygyny) and higher male parental effort should have lower immune capacity and stronger oxidative imbalance. Within females, a weak or no direct effect of male sexual selection on physiology is expected, but species where females invest more in parental care should have lower immune capacity and higher oxidative imbalance. We tested these predictions by phylogenetic comparative analyses conducted separately for the two sexes and based on 11,586 physiological measurements of samples collected in the field from 2,..., All morphological, behavioural, and ecological parameters provided in Table 1 and used in the analyses were extracted from published articles as stated in the Methods. For all physiological traits, species- and sex-specific average physiology measures as best linear unbiased estimates (BLUEs) are provided. The blood samples for physiological measures were collected from wild birds captured during the breeding season.
, , # Phylogenetic relationships of immune function and oxidative physiology with sexual selection and parental effort in male and female birds

## Description

The dataset contains species-specific values for body mass and parental effort of males and females, sexual dichromatism, male polygyny score, extra pair paternity, diet and average physiology measures (heterophils, lymphocytes, white blood cells, heterophile: lymphocyte ratio, agglutination, lysis, bacteria-killing activity, total antioxidant status, uric acid, total glutathione, reactive oxygen metabolites, malondialdehyde) of males and females provided as best linear unbiased estimates (BLUE scores) and sample sizes for each measured physiological parameters. Note that cells from Table 2 with NA represent missing values. Physiological measures were collected from 116 and 106 European bird species for males and females, respectively, captured at various sites across Romania during the breeding season between 2011 and 2013, and bet...,