Acute flight and flight training deplete non-enzymatic antioxidant
capacity and protect against oxidative damage in a migratory songbird,
but dietary antioxidants and fat quality have little effect on oxidative
status
Abstract
Ecologically-relevant factors such as exercise and diet quality can
directly influence how multifaceted physiological systems work; however,
little is known about how such factors directly and interactively affect
key components of the antioxidant system in multiple tissues of
migratory songbirds. We tested 3 main hypotheses across three tissues in
European Starlings fed diets with more or less antioxidants
(anthocyanins) and long-chain polyunsaturated fats (18:2n6) while being
flight-trained in a wind tunnel. Stimulatory effect of flight:
Flight-training stimulated the antioxidant system in that a) plasma
oxidative damage was reduced during a given acute flight, and b)
antioxidant capacity and oxidative damage in plasma and tissues of
flight-trained birds were similar to that of untrained birds.
Flight-trained birds that expended more energy per unit time (kJ/min)
during their longest, final flight decreased the non-enzymatic component
of their antioxidant system the most during the final flight. Dietary
antioxidant effect: Flight-trained birds that consumed more dietary
anthocyanins had similar antioxidant capacity in liver and flight-muscle
compared to untrained birds, and oxidative damage was prevented in the
flight-muscle and reduced in the liver of flight-trained birds compared
to untrained birds. Dietary fat quality effect: Contrary to our
predictions, dietary 18:2n-6 did not influence oxidative status even
after flight training. We found limited evidence that circulating and
tissue-level oxidative capacity and damage were tightly regulated in
flight-trained starlings, in contrast to the precise regulation on gene
expression and enzyme activity that were observed in companion studies.
In sum, the antioxidant system of songbirds flexibly responded to
changes in availability of dietary antioxidants as well as increased
flight time and effort, and such condition-dependent, individual-level,
tissue-specific responses to the oxidative costs of long-duration
flights apparently requires recovery periods for maintaining oxidative
balance during migration.