Fecal stress, nutrition and reproductive hormones for monitoring environmental impacts on tigers (Panthera tigris).

ABSTRACT: Non-invasive stress and nutritional hormone analysis in relation to ecological and other biological indices have tremendous potential to address environmental disturbance impacts on wildlife health. To this end, we examined the relation between glucocorticoid (GC) and thyroid (T3) hormone indices of disturbance and nutritional stress in response to ACTH and TSH challenges in captive tigers, as well as how reproductive hormones vary by sex and reproductive condition. Glucocorticoid, thyroid, progesterone and androgen assays conducted on high-performance liquid chromatography separated fractions of biologically relevant fecal extracts revealed high cross-reactivity of these assays for their respective biologically relevant fecal hormone metabolites. Both adrenal and thyroid hormone metabolit

SUBMITTER: Mondol S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6955020 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature