Relating physiological stress to habitat quality could refne conservation eforts. Habitat quality,
which is often inferred from patch occupancy or demographic rates, might be measured in a more
timely and nuanced way using metrics of physiological stress. To understand whether stressassociated hormones vary with metrics of habitat quality, we measured fecal glucocorticoid
metabolite (FGM) levels in the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a small mammal with welldefned habitat (talus), which can vary in quality depending on the presence of subsurface ice
features. In spring and fall 2018, we collected feces noninvasively from pika territories in taluses
“with” or “without” subsurface ice to capture seasonal variation in FGM between habitat types. We
used linear mixed efects models to explore the interactions among season, habitat metrics
(including subsurface ice status), and subsurface temperature as predictors of FGM. We found
support for interacting efects on FGM levels, which covaried with season, elevation, putative ice
presence, graminoid to forb ratio, graminoid cover, and measures of acute subsurface heat
exposure. However, only one subsurface temperature metric difered according to putative presence of subsurface ice. Our results contribute to the growing evidence that FGMs might be
developed as a tool to assess habitat quality.
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Temporal vs. spatial variation in stress-associated metabolites within a population of climate-sensitive small mammals
ABSTRACT Temporal variation in stress might signify changes in an animal’s internal or external environment, while spatial variation in stress might signify variation in the quality of the habitats that individual animals experience. Habitat-induced variations in stress might be easiest to detect in highly territorial animals, and especially in species that do not take advantage of common strategies for modulating habitat-induced stress, such as migration (escape in space) or hibernation (escape in time). Spatial and temporal variation in response to potential stressors has received little study in wild animals, especially at scales appropriate for relating stress to specific habitat characteristics. Here, we use the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a territorial small mammal, to investigate stress response within and among territories. For individually territorial animals such as pikas, differences in habitat quality should lead to differences in stress exhibited by territory owners. We indexed stress using stress-associated hormone metabolites in feces collected non-invasively from pika territories every 2 weeks from June to September 2018. We hypothesized that differences in territory quality would lead to spatial differences in mean stress and that seasonal variation in physiology or the physical environment would lead to synchronous variation across territories through time. We used linear mixed-effects models to explore spatiotemporal variation in stress using fixed effects of day-of-year and broad habitat characteristics (elevation, aspect, site), as well as local variation in habitat characteristics hypothesized to affect territory quality for this saxicolous species (talus depth, clast size, available forage types). We found that temporal variation within territories was greater than spatial variation among territories, suggesting that shared seasonal stressors are more influential than differences in individual habitat quality. This approach could be used in other wildlife studies to refine our understanding of habitat quality and its effect on individual stress levels as a driver of population decline.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1637686
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10303147
- Editor(s):
- Cooke, Steven
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Conservation Physiology
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2051-1434
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coab024
