Faecal corticosterone metabolite concentrations are not a good predictor of habitat suitability for common gartersnakes.

ABSTRACT: Measuring habitat suitability is important in conservation and in wildlife management. Measuring the abundance or presence-absence of a species in various habitats is not sufficient to measure habitat suitability because these metrics can be poor predictors of population success. Therefore, having some measure of population success is essential in assessing habitat suitability, but estimating population success is difficult. Identifying suitable proxies for population success could thus be beneficial. We examined whether faecal corticosterone metabolite (fCM) concentrations could be used as a proxy for habitat suitability in common gartersnakes (Thamnophis sirtalis). We conducted a validation study and confirmed that fCM concentrations indeed reflect circulating corticosterone concentratio

SUBMITTER: Halliday WD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4778491 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature