No island-effect on stress for a rodent from a near-shore archipelago
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biogeography, Ecology, Zoology
- Keywords
- corticosterone, islands, stress, physiology, biogeography, predation, glucocorticoid, stressor
- Copyright
- © 2019 Stewart et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. No island-effect on stress for a rodent from a near-shore archipelago. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27830v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27830v1
Abstract
Island rodents are often larger and live at higher population densities than their mainland counterparts, characteristics that have been referred to as “island syndrome”. Island syndrome has been well studied, but few studies have tested for island-mainland differences in stress physiology. We evaluated island syndrome within the context of stress physiology of white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) captured from islands (n = 11) and mainland sites (n = 5) in Thousand Islands National Park, Ontario, Canada. Stress physiology was evaluated by quantifying corticosterone, the primary glucocorticoid (stress hormone) of rodents, from hair and its related metabolites from fecal samples. White-footed mice captured in this near-shore archipelago did not display characteristics of island syndrome, nor differences in levels of hair corticosterone or fecal corticosterone metabolites compared with mainland mice. We suggest that island white-footed mice experience similar degrees of stress in the Thousand Islands compared with the mainland. Although we did not find evidence of island syndrome or accompanying changes to stress physiology, we identified relationships between internal (sex, body mass) and external (season) factors and our hormonal indices of stress in white-footed mice.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Summary of trapping success during each trapping session for white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) in Thousand Islands National Park, Canada
Numbers apply to the following for each trapping session: Tn – total trap nights, Trip – total disturbed traps, Ind – individually tagged white-footed mice caught, and Capt – total white-footed mice captures.