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Research | Open Access

Function of the uropygial gland in eiders (Somateria mollissima)

Anders Pape Møller1,2 ( ), Karsten Laursen3
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Grenåvej 14, Kalø, 8410 Rønde, Denmark
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Abstract

Background

The uropygial gland is an exocrine gland located above the tail of birds that produces a diverse range of biochemicals. It has been hypothesized to be involved in chemical protection, water-proofing and maintenance of plumage brightness. Although these not necessarily mutually exclusive functions have received some empirical support, there has been little empirical research on the function of water-proofing.

Methods

Here we analyzed data for 229 individual eiders (Somateria mollissima) collected by Danish hunters during 2016?2018.

Results

The Eider is a sea-duck that spends almost its entire life in sea water emphasizing water-proofing of the plumage. The size of the uropygial gland increased with body mass in males, but not in females, and it increased with age. The size of the uropygial gland decreased during winter. Eiders with small uropygial glands grew their feathers at a fast rate. Eiders with large wing areas had large uropygial glands.

Conclusions

These findings are consistent with large uropygial glands playing a role in water-proofing during molt and foraging, but also that uropygial glands may play a role in chemical defense.

Keywords

Anti-microbial substanceEiderSomateria mollissimaUropygial glandWater-proofing

References

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Avian Research
Volume 10 Issue 1,
January 2019
Article number: 24
DOI: 10.1186/s40657-019-0163-8

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Cite this article:
Møller AP, Laursen K. Function of the uropygial gland in eiders (Somateria mollissima). Avian Research, 2019, 10(1): 24. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40657-019-0163-8

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Received: 22 October 2018
Accepted: 11 June 2019
Published: 05 July 2019
© The Author(s) 2019.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.