Eye Region Surface Temperature and Corticosterone Response to Acute Stress in a High-Arctic Seabird, the Little Auk
International audience Measuring changes in surface body temperature (specifically in eye-region) in vertebrates using infrared thermography is increasingly applied for detection of the stress reaction. Here we investigated the relationship between the eye-region temperature (TEYE; measured with inf...
Published in: | Animals |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
HAL CCSD
2022
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hal.science/hal-03591209 https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12040499 |
Summary: | International audience Measuring changes in surface body temperature (specifically in eye-region) in vertebrates using infrared thermography is increasingly applied for detection of the stress reaction. Here we investigated the relationship between the eye-region temperature (TEYE; measured with infrared thermography), the corticosterone level in blood (CORT; stress indicator in birds), and some covariates (ambient temperature, humidity, and sex/body size) in a High-Arctic seabird, the Little Auk Alle alle. The birds responded to the capture-restrain protocol (blood sampling at the moment of capturing, and after 30 min of restrain) by a significant TEYE and CORT increase. However, the strength of the TEYE and CORT response to acute stress were not correlated. It confirms the results of a recent study on other species and all together indicates that infrared thermography is a useful, non-invasive measure of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity under acute activation, but it might not be a suitable proxy for natural variation of circulating glucocorticoid levels. |
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