![\"Great-Tit-Bird\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/discoblog\/files\/2010\/01\/Great-Tit-Bird.jpg\" "\\"Great-Tit-Bird\\"")
Flashy tits equals stronger sperm–at least in the bird world.<\/p>\nFlashy tits equals stronger sperm–at least in the bird world.<\/p>\n
A recent study of the birds known as great tits, by evolutionary ecologist Fabrice Helfenstein<\/a> at the University of Bern, Switzerland, found that the more colorful and bright a male tit’s plumage, the stronger the bird’s sperm is.<\/p>\n The study<\/a>, published in Ecology Letters<\/em>, explains that the plumage of some birds contains caretenoids–important antioxidants that can help the bird combat cellular damage caused by stress from predators or feeding babies. A higher amount of caretenoids also results in intensely colored plumage in males, signaling the bird’s increased capacity to ward off stress and preserve its sperm from damage.<\/p>\n <\/span>New Scientist<\/em><\/a> reports:<\/p>\n [Fabrice Helfenstein] tested this by upping the parental workload of wild male great tits, Parus major<\/em> – which have yellow breast plumage – by adding two extra chicks to their nests. After five days of looking after their big brood, males with paler plumage suffered a greater reduction in sperm motility than more colorful males. Supplementing the birds’ diet with carotenoids markedly improved the sperm quality of the paler males.<\/p>\n Related Content: Image: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n Flashy tits equals stronger sperm–at least in the bird world. A recent study of the birds known as great tits, by evolutionary ecologist Fabrice Helfenstein at the University of Bern, Switzerland, found that the more colorful and bright a male tit’s plumage, the stronger the bird’s sperm is. The study, published in Ecology Letters, explains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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