DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22rh
title: Data from: Condition-dependent immune response in a migrating shorebird, the common snipe Gallinago gallinago

description: Bird migration, as an energy-demanding activity, is expected to generate
 allocation trade-offs between important biological processes, such as
 immune response. On one hand, long-distance migratory flights may require
 redirection of resources from immune response and promote temporal
 immunosuppression. On the other hand, individuals in high body conditions
 may have the capacity to cope with the costs of migration while
 maintaining adequate levels of immune activity. Here, we investigated the
 covariation of immune response and two measures of condition in a
 short-distance migratory shorebird, the common snipe Gallinago gallinago.
 We captured and experimentally induced immune response using
 phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) in 148 snipes during the autumn migration. We
 found a positive relationship between PHA-induced immune response with
 indices of body condition reflecting aerobic capacity (total blood
 haemoglobin concentration) and the level of accumulated energy reserves
 (size-corrected body mass). The results provided evidence for
 condition-dependent immune response in migrating snipes, indicating that
 high-quality individuals are capable of sustaining optimal, non-suppressed
 immune responses during migration. We suggest that abundant food resources
 at high-quality stopover sites may help individuals rapidly replenish body
 reserves essential for the effective functioning of the immune system. It
 also seems likely that the maintenance of adequate immune function or its
 upregulation may confer significant adaptive advantages under ecological
 conditions of increased pathogenic exposure during migration.
description: # Condition-dependent immune response in a migrating shorebird, the common
 snipe Gallinago gallinago
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22rh](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9zw3r22rh) ## Description of the data and file structure The data were collected at the Jeziorsko reservoir (51°40′ N, 18°40′ E), central Poland, during two autumn migratory seasons (2018-2019, period 04 August -15 September). Files are stored in Excel file (.xlsx) format. ### Files and variables #### File: DATA\_SET.xlsx **Description:** The file contains the results of experiment conducted on 148 common snipe (*Gallinago gallinago*). It includes data on the induced immune responses and body condition indices for each individual. ##### Variables * N: ordinal number * Year: year of the sampling procedure * Day: day of the year * Bird_ID: individual bird number which is a metal ring number * Age_class: one of the two possible values: 1- first-year bird; 2- adult bird * LOG_PHA: log-transformed PHA-induced immune response: wing web thickness- measured as a difference between measurement taken 12 hours after injection and measurement taken before the injection of phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) * HB^2: exponentially (squared) transformed total blood hemoglobin concentration [dag/l] measured with a HemoCue Hb 201+ photometer (HemoCue Hb, Ängelholm, Sweden) * WING LENGTH: total wing length measurement taken using scale with 1 mm accuracy * LOG-SMI: log-transformed scaled mass index- SMI calculated according to equation proposed by Peig & Green (2009) Reference:  Peig, J., and Green, A. J. 2009. New perspectives for estimating body condition from mass/length data: The scaled mass index as an alternative method. – Oikos 118: 1883–1891. ## Code/software All analyses were conducted in the R statistical environment (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria) using *lme4* and *r2glmm* package.