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Time Constraints Mediate Predator-Induced Plasticity In Immune Function, Condition, And Life History, Robby Stoks, Marjan De Block, Stefanie Slos, Wendy Van Doorslaer, Jens Rolff

Dartmouth Scholarship

The simultaneous presence of predators and a limited time for development imposes a conflict: accelerating growth under time constraints comes at the cost of higher predation risk mediated by increased foraging. The few studies that have addressed this trade-off have dealt only with life history traits such as age and size at maturity. Physiological traits have largely been ignored in studies assessing the impact of environmental stressors, and it is largely unknown whether they respond independently of life history traits. Here, we studied the simultaneous effects of time constraints, i.e., as imposed by seasonality, and predation risk on immune defense, …