Behavioural fever in vertebrate ectotherms: patterns, processes, and ecological implications

• Grant number: 25/06560-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology - Compared Physiology
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Arturo Navas Iannini
• Grantee: Danilo Giacometti dos Santos Uehara Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 24/13478-0 - Faunal responses to anthropogenic environmental changes: contributions of conservation physiology, AP.TEM

Abstract

The ability to maintain thermal balance is crucial for organismal functioning. In amphibians and reptiles, infections by pathogens can cause behavioural fever-a process whereby individuals actively regulate elevated body temperatures. Febrile responses are reversible and bear great adaptive value, as fever may decrease pathogen load and enhance immune efficiency. Despite the premise that the processes that sustain fever are conserved among different animal groups, the patterns, processes, and costs associated with fever remain poorly understood in amphibians and reptiles. These gaps of knowledge are especially alarming when one considers that several diseases that afflict these organisms are predicted to have their distribution favoured under climate change. In this context, the main objective of this postdoctoral research proposal is to evaluate how infections influence behavioural and physiological responses associated with fever in amphibians and reptiles. To this end, I will use an integrative framework encompassing theoretical and empirical studies at broad and local scales. In the first year, I will perform a quantitative synthesis and meta-analysis to understand how the interaction between climate, ecological context, and type of infection may explain broad-scale patterns of behavioural fever occurrence in amphibians and reptiles; there are at least 30 studies in this context available in the literature, rendering the meta-analysis a viable endeavour. In the second year, I will experimentally evaluate thermoregulatory responses before and after bacterial infection to understand how fever impacts the maintenance of thermal balance in anurans. In the third year, I will evaluate the energetic costs of sustaining a febrile state in anurans. Thus, this research proposal holds the potential to further the current knowledge about behavioural fever in amphibians and reptiles by integrating the synthesis of general patterns with the study of underlying processes.