Seeds and fat balls can do more than just fill the stomachs of small birds. Winter feeding makes birds healthier because they don’t have to expend as much energy fighting infections, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden.
A small change in body temperature can be fatal for a person. Small birds, meanwhile, will drop their body temperature by several degrees at night during the winter. Just like us, birds try to conserve energy when it’s cold. If exposed to infection, the body’s first response is to raise its temperature, which is contrary to the bird’s current need to conserve energy by lowering its body temperature.
“We investigated how access to food in winter affects the balance between keeping body temperature low to conserve energy and being able to raise body temperature to fight infection,” says Hannah Watson, a biologist at Lund University.
The study shows that birds that were fed in the winter did not have to lower their body temperature at night as much as birds that did not have access to feeding tables. They mustered enough energy to survive the winter night despite their higher body temperature.
Helps small birds to fight infections
When the birds were exposed to the simulated infection, all the birds had essentially the same temperature during the fever. Instead of conserving energy to survive the winter, birds without access to extra food were forced to use more energy to raise their body temperature high enough to fight infection.
“We expected to find that birds that had access to feeders would have more energy to fight off infection, and that as a result they would show a stronger response to fever. However, our results show the opposite – birds that did not have access to a reliable food source had the strongest response to infection. This allowed them to reach the same temperature as the birds with the extra food,” says Hannah Watson.
Climate change and human activity are having an increasing impact on animals. Wild animals come into contact with new pathogens that they have never encountered before. Feeding birds can have both positive and negative effects.
Birds that visit feeding tables are exposed to more infections due to the spread of pathogens, but this could make their immune defenses more tolerant to new infection. It is therefore important, the researchers say, to understand the factors that influence an animal’s ability to mount an effective immune response access to food in winter is one such example.
“A lot of people like to feed the birds. Our study shows that this can have a positive effect on our little birds’ ability to fight infection,” concludes Hannah Watson.
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