Journal ArticleDOI
The need for a predictive, context-dependent approach to the application of stress hormones in conservation.
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In this paper, the effects of environmental alteration often manifest in an organism's physiology before changes can be detected at the population level, physiological measures can provide earlier detection of disturbances and greater predictive capacity than traditional demographic methods.Abstract:
Monitoring the impact of anthropogenic disturbance on species or populations of interest is an important goal of conservation (Van Dyke 2008). Because the effects of environmental alteration often manifest in an organism’s physiology before changes can be detected at the population level, physiological measures can provide earlier detection of disturbances and greater predictive capacity than traditional demographic methods (Wikelski & Cooke 2006; Ellis et al. 2012). This mechanistic approach, known as conservation physiology, can also help determine which populations are most susceptible to disturbance, key periods when disturbances may be most detrimental, and whether management techniques are having positive effects (Carey 2005; Wikelski & Cooke 2006). Incorporating physiological biomarkers into population monitoring also provides the opportunity to interpret anthropogenic changes from the perspective of the organism rather than the researcher and thus improve our understanding of which conditions constitute a disturbance. Glucocorticoids (GCs), often referred to as stress hormones, represent some of the most widely proposed physiological biomarkers (Cooke & O’Connor 2010). GCs (e.g., corticosterone and cortisol) act in 2 distinct and separately measurable ways as determined by their circulating concentration and the receptors to which they bind (Landys et al. 2006). GCs are best known for their role in enabling individuals to respond to unpredictable events such as extreme weather, predator interaction, or social conflict through the acute stress response (McEwen & Wingfield 2003). By increasing within minutes ofread more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Measures of physiological stress: a transparent or opaque window into the status, management and conservation of species?
TL;DR: A meta-analysis shows that human activities consistently increase stress hormone levels across vertebrates, and five questions should be considered about the use of stress hormone measurements in conservation physiology are discussed.
Themed Issue Article: Stress in Vertebrates Measures of physiological stress: a transparent or opaque window into the status, management and conservation of species?
TL;DR: The use of measurements of glucocorticoids in conservation physiology has been discussed in this paper, where the authors show that anthropogenic disturbances are consistently associated with increased glucoc corticoid levels regardless of the type of human disturbance.
Book ChapterDOI
Stress Indicators in Fish
TL;DR: Understanding of how absolute levels of indicators relate to stressor severity and recovery to date remains limited, and how accurately indicators characterize stress in wild populations naturally exposed to stressors is still an evolving discussion.
Journal ArticleDOI
The relationship between physiological stress and wildlife disease: consequences for health and conservation
TL;DR: It is recommended that increased attention be given to the influence of anthropogenic stressors including climate change, habitat loss and management interventions on disease dynamics in wildlife populations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Glucocorticoid manipulations in free-living animals: considerations of dose delivery, life-history context and reproductive state
TL;DR: It is argued that given the dichotomous function of GCs the current ‘reproduction vs. survival’ paradigm is unnecessarily restrictive and predicts only deleterious GC effects on fitness, so a broader set of hypotheses should be considered when testing the fitness effects of GC manipulations.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
How do glucocorticoids influence stress responses? Integrating permissive, suppressive, stimulatory, and preparative actions.
TL;DR: This review considers recent findings regarding GC action and generates criteria for determining whether a particular GC action permits, stimulates, or suppresses an ongoing stress-response or, as an additional category, is preparative for a subsequent stressor.
Journal ArticleDOI
The concept of allostasis in biology and biomedicine.
TL;DR: The concept of allostasis is discussed, maintaining stability through change, as a fundamental process through which organisms actively adjust to both predictable and unpredictable events, using the balance between energy input and expenditure as the basis for applying the concept.
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Physiological stress in ecology: lessons from biomedical research
TL;DR: Five physiological mechanisms that regulate hormone release during stress that should be useful to ecologists and conservationists are summarized.
Journal ArticleDOI
Seasonal changes in plasma glucocorticoid concentrations in free-living vertebrates.
TL;DR: This review examines the growing evidence that GC concentrations in free-living reptiles, amphibians, and birds, but not mammals, are commonly elevated during the breeding season and test three hypotheses with different focuses on GC's energetic or behavioral effects, as well as onGC's role in preparing the animal for subsequent stressors.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Reactive Scope Model - a new model integrating homeostasis, allostasis, and stress.
TL;DR: The Reactive Scope Model is proposed, an alternate graphical model that builds on the strengths of allostasis and traditional concepts of stress yet addresses many of the criticisms and should be useful to both biomedical researchers studying laboratory animals and humans, as well as ecologists studying stress in free-living animals.