Japanese Quail Selected for High Plasma Corticosterone Response Deposit High Levels of Corticosterone in Their Eggs

Poor habitat quality or body condition often correlates with high responsiveness of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis rather than with elevated baseline levels of glucocorticoids. We hypothesized that, for egg-laying vertebrates, high responsiveness of the HPA axis would correspond to high concentrations of corticosterone in yolk. We tested the prediction that Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) selected for high plasma corticosterone response to brief immobilization (HS quail) would lay eggs with higher yolk corticosterone concentrations than birds selected for low response (LS quail). Quail from both lines were left undisturbed, outside of the stressors associated with daily management, before a first round of egg collection. In a second experiment, quail of both lines were experimentally stressed during the week before egg collection. In both cases we found quail from the HS line to lay eggs with significantly higher yolk corticosterone concentrations than quail of the LS line. After exposure to added experimental stressors, the line difference was more pronounced (increasing from 62% to 96%). There was no line difference in concentrations of yolk testosterone. Our results suggest that (1) genetic differences underly differences in the transfer of maternal corticosterone to yolk and (2) females may be able to control deposition of corticosterone into yolk through a mechanism independent of baseline corticosterone titers.