In summary, the independent (or resident) morph holds a lek territory and gains the most matings, the satellite morph attends the lek, co-displays, and gains fewer matings, and the faeder (or female mimic) gets sneak matings in from an outside position. Each of these lifestyles should have different maintenance needs, different testosterone levels, and different time and protein demands to trade off against immune function, so we would expect them to go about protecting themselves from pathogens by different means.
What we did that was different than previously done for this species is measure a larger suite of immune traits, and found that they could be summarised by principle components analysis into a size of immune function axis and a type of immune strategy or syndrome axis. Also unique in this study is it is the first immunological characterisation of the female mimic morph.
With respect to immune syndrome, female mimics are more like females than they are like the other two male morphs. Since immune syndrome is probably shaped by maintenance needs and passive transfer of protection to offspring, this says that the maintenance needs of female mimics are similar to females.
