Our paper on the metabolic costs of mounting an immune response in brown anoles was published in the Journal of Experimental Zoology A! This paper was collaborative work with Bob Cox at the University of Virginia and an undergraduate in the lab, Robbie Peaden. We tested whether the immune system incurred a metabolic cost by injecting male brown anole lizards in the feet with PHA, which is a protein from red kidney beans. This exposure to a novel protein induces a swelling response, which can be measured and compared to metabolic rate. We found evidence that lizards that did respond to the PHA injection experienced an increase in metabolic rate, consistent with the idea that the immune system can incur metabolic costs. This cover of this issue of the journal features a photograph of a male brown anole that I took this year in Florida. To read the article, click the link below.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jez.1960/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jez.1960/abstract
