Assessment of season-dependent body condition scores in relation to faecal glucocorticoid metabolites in free-ranging Asian elephants.

ABSTRACT: We studied seasonal and annual changes in visual body condition scores (BCSs), and assessed how these scores were related to levels of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCMs) in free-ranging Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in the seasonally dry tropical forests of the Mysore and Nilgiri Elephant Reserves in southern India. We assessed the animals' BCS visually on a scale of 1 to 5; where 1 represents a very thin and 5 represents a very fat elephant. To understand the influence of seasonality on BCS, we sampled the population during dry (n = 398) and wet seasons (n = 255) of 2013 and 2015 while, for annual changes in BCS, we sampled nine free-ranging adult females from different family groups that had been repeatedly sighted over seven years. To evaluate the influen

SUBMITTER: Pokharel SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5508666 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature