Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan
Abstract Chronic stress and poor body condition can cause adverse physiological and behavioural responses and may make animals more vulnerable to predation. We examined hair cortisol concentration (HCC) and marrow lipid content, as bioindicators of chronic stress and body condition, respectively, of...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coz037 http://academic.oup.com/conphys/article-pdf/7/1/coz037/28921715/coz037.pdf |
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croxfordunivpr:10.1093/conphys/coz037 2023-10-09T21:44:20+02:00 Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan Shave, Justin R Derocher, Andrew E Cherry, Seth G Thiemann, Gregory W Fuller, Andrea Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master’s Program Parks Canada Agency Conservation and Restoration Program 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coz037 http://academic.oup.com/conphys/article-pdf/7/1/coz037/28921715/coz037.pdf en eng Oxford University Press (OUP) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Conservation Physiology volume 7, issue 1 ISSN 2051-1434 Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecological Modeling Physiology journal-article 2019 croxfordunivpr https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coz037 2023-09-22T11:14:36Z Abstract Chronic stress and poor body condition can cause adverse physiological and behavioural responses and may make animals more vulnerable to predation. We examined hair cortisol concentration (HCC) and marrow lipid content, as bioindicators of chronic stress and body condition, respectively, of bison (Bison bison bison), moose (Alces alces) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) killed by wolves (Canis lupus) in Prince Albert National Park (PANP), Saskatchewan, Canada. The Sturgeon River plains bison population in PANP is one of only a few wild populations of plains bison in their historical range in Canada and has experienced a decline of around 50% since 2005. We expected wolf-killed bison to have elevated HCC compared to human-harvested bison and that there would be a negative relationship between HCC and marrow lipids among wolf-killed animals. We compared HCC between different mortality sources for bison (wolf-killed n = 20 or human-harvested n = 23) and found that HCC was significantly elevated in wolf-killed bison (̄ = 7.56 ± 1.35 pg/mg). We found that HCC, species, sex and snow depth were all significant predictor variables of marrow lipid content of bison (n = 14), moose (n = 11) and deer (n = 27). Bison displayed the strongest negative correlation between HCC and marrow lipid content (r2 = 0.31). Our results suggest that chronic stress and poor body condition make prey more vulnerable to predation by wolves. HCC and marrow lipid content can provide reliable indicators of the physiological response of animals to stressors and may provide information on expected predator success that can be used to predict predator population dynamics. Article in Journal/Newspaper Alces alces Canis lupus Bison bison bison Plains Bison Oxford University Press (via Crossref) Canada Sturgeon River ENVELOPE(-91.379,-91.379,55.522,55.522) Conservation Physiology 7 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Oxford University Press (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
croxfordunivpr |
language |
English |
topic |
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecological Modeling Physiology |
spellingShingle |
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecological Modeling Physiology Shave, Justin R Derocher, Andrew E Cherry, Seth G Thiemann, Gregory W Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan |
topic_facet |
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law Nature and Landscape Conservation Ecological Modeling Physiology |
description |
Abstract Chronic stress and poor body condition can cause adverse physiological and behavioural responses and may make animals more vulnerable to predation. We examined hair cortisol concentration (HCC) and marrow lipid content, as bioindicators of chronic stress and body condition, respectively, of bison (Bison bison bison), moose (Alces alces) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) killed by wolves (Canis lupus) in Prince Albert National Park (PANP), Saskatchewan, Canada. The Sturgeon River plains bison population in PANP is one of only a few wild populations of plains bison in their historical range in Canada and has experienced a decline of around 50% since 2005. We expected wolf-killed bison to have elevated HCC compared to human-harvested bison and that there would be a negative relationship between HCC and marrow lipids among wolf-killed animals. We compared HCC between different mortality sources for bison (wolf-killed n = 20 or human-harvested n = 23) and found that HCC was significantly elevated in wolf-killed bison (̄ = 7.56 ± 1.35 pg/mg). We found that HCC, species, sex and snow depth were all significant predictor variables of marrow lipid content of bison (n = 14), moose (n = 11) and deer (n = 27). Bison displayed the strongest negative correlation between HCC and marrow lipid content (r2 = 0.31). Our results suggest that chronic stress and poor body condition make prey more vulnerable to predation by wolves. HCC and marrow lipid content can provide reliable indicators of the physiological response of animals to stressors and may provide information on expected predator success that can be used to predict predator population dynamics. |
author2 |
Fuller, Andrea Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master’s Program Parks Canada Agency Conservation and Restoration Program |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Shave, Justin R Derocher, Andrew E Cherry, Seth G Thiemann, Gregory W |
author_facet |
Shave, Justin R Derocher, Andrew E Cherry, Seth G Thiemann, Gregory W |
author_sort |
Shave, Justin R |
title |
Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan |
title_short |
Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan |
title_full |
Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan |
title_fullStr |
Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan |
title_full_unstemmed |
Chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan |
title_sort |
chronic stress and body condition of wolf-killed prey in prince albert national park, saskatchewan |
publisher |
Oxford University Press (OUP) |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coz037 http://academic.oup.com/conphys/article-pdf/7/1/coz037/28921715/coz037.pdf |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-91.379,-91.379,55.522,55.522) |
geographic |
Canada Sturgeon River |
geographic_facet |
Canada Sturgeon River |
genre |
Alces alces Canis lupus Bison bison bison Plains Bison |
genre_facet |
Alces alces Canis lupus Bison bison bison Plains Bison |
op_source |
Conservation Physiology volume 7, issue 1 ISSN 2051-1434 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coz037 |
container_title |
Conservation Physiology |
container_volume |
7 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1779309399363289088 |