Investigating the effect of habitat modification on chronic stress  in deer mice: a preliminary study

Andreas Eleftheriou; Angela D. Luis

doi:10.53607/wrb.v37.110

Authors

Andreas Eleftheriou Wildlife Biology Program, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA
Angela D. Luis Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53607/wrb.v37.110

Keywords:

anthropogenic disturbance, fecal corticosterone metabolites, North American deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus, zoonotic viruses, body condition score

Abstract

Anthropogenic habitat modification can lead to chronic stress in wildlife. This can result in immunosuppression and higher disease prevalence. Chronically stressed individuals typically have elevated baseline GCs and decreased body condition. GCs are called FGMs when excreted in feces and can be used to noninvasively evaluate stress in free-ranging wildlife. In the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus)–SNV system, SNV prevalence is higher in deer mice at peridomestic settings, which are human-modified habitats. This is problematic because SNV causes a fatal disease in humans, and thus the higher SNV prevalence may lead to higher risk of infection for humans. In our study, we hypothesized that SNV prevalence would be higher in deer mice at human-modified habitats due to chronic stress. To test our hypothesis, we compared two stress measures (i.e., baseline FGMs and body condition scores) in deer mice from one peridomestic and one sylvan grid over 2 months. Captured deer mice were tagged, weighed, sexed and sampled for feces and blood and were evaluated for reproductive status and body condition before release. Blood samples were analysed for SNV antibodies, and fecal samples were evaluated for FGMs. We found higher deer mouse numbers at the sylvan grid. There were no differences in baseline FGM levels between peridomestic and sylvan populations. However, peridomestic deer mice had overall lower body condition. Given the low SNV prevalence across both grids, we were unable to examine potential correlations between SNV prevalence and chronic stress. Regardless, we conclude that deer mice at human-modified habitats may not be chronically stressed, which may suggest that higher SNV prevalence at peridomestic settings may not be the result of chronic stress. Although we did find that peridomestic deer mice had lower body condition, this may not have been related to chronic stress because there were no differences in baseline FGMs. Longer studies with more site replication are needed to validate and expand on our findings. Our preliminary study adds to the existing body of knowledge that examines relationships between stress physiology and disease prevalence in human-modified environments.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Andreas Eleftheriou, Wildlife Biology Program, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

Dr. Andreas Eleftheriou graduated from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. After graduation, he completed a clinical veterinary internship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital for Small Animals. He is now a Ph.D. Candidate in the Wildlife Biology Program at the University of Montana in Missoula.

Angela D. Luis, Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

Dr. Angela Luis graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a Ph.D. degree in Ecology where she studied environmental and population effects on pathogen dynamics in a wildlife species. She completed post-doctoral appointments at Colorado State University and Princeton University. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences at the University of Montana in Missoula.

References

Armstrong L.R., Zaki S.R., Goldoft M.J., Todd R.L., Khan A.S., Khabbaz R.F., Ksiazek T.G. & Peters C.J. 1995. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome associated with entering or cleaning rarely used, rodent-infested structures. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 172(4), 1166. doi: 10.1093/infdis/172.4.1166.

Baker R.H. 1968. Habitats and distribution. In J.A. King (ed.): Biology of Peromyscus (Rodentia). Pp. 98–126. Stillwater, OK: The American Society of Mammologists.

Bi Z., Formenty P.B. & Roth C.E. 2008. Hantavirus infection: a review and global update. The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries 2(01), 003–023. doi: 10.3855/jidc.317.

Bradley C.A. & Altizer S. 2007. Urbanization and the ecology of wildlife diseases. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 22(2), 95–102. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2006.11.001.

Bradley E.L. & Terman C.R. 1981. A comparison of the adrenal histology, reproductive condition, and serum corticosterone concentrations of prairie deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii) in captivity. Journal of Mammalogy 62(2), 353–361. doi: 10.2307/1380711.

Brearley G., Rhodes J., Bradley A., Baxter G., Seabrook L., Lunney D., Liu Y. & McAlpine C. 2013. Wildlife disease prevalence in human‐modified landscapes. Biological Reviews 88(2), 427–442. doi: 10.1111/brv.12009.

Buscha D.S. & Hayward L.S. 2009. Stress in a conservation context: a discussion of glucocorticoid actions and how levels change with conservation-relevant variables. Biological Conservation 142(12), 2844–2853. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.08.013.

Calisher C.H., Mills J.N., Root J.J., Doty J.B. & Beaty B.J. 2011. The relative abundance of deer mice with antibody to Sin Nombre virus corresponds to the occurrence of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in nearby humans. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, 11(5), 577–582. doi: 10.1089/vbz.2010.0122.

Childs J E., Ksiazek T.G., Spiropoulou C.F., Krebs J.W., Morzunov S., Maupin G.O., Gage K.L., Rollin P.E., Sarisky J. & Enscore R.E. 1994. Serologic and genetic identification of Peromyscus maniculatus as the primary rodent reservoir for a new hantavirus in the southwestern United States. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 169(6), 1271–1280. doi: 10.1093/infdis/169.6.1271.

Cyr N.E. & Romero L.M. 2009. Identifying hormonal habituation in field studies of stress. General and Comparative Endocrinology 161(3), 295–303. doi: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2009.02.001.

Dantzer B., Fletcher Q.E., Boonstra R. & Sheriff M.J. 2014. Measures of physiological stress: a transparent or opaque window into the status, management and conservation of species? Conservation Physiology 2(1), cou023. doi: 10.1093/conphys/cou023.

Douglass R.J., Calisher C.H., Wagoner K.D. & Mills J.N. 2007. Sin Nombre virus infection of deer mice in Montana: characteristics of newly infected mice, incidence, and temporal pattern of infection. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 43(1), 12–22. doi: 10.7589/0090-3558-43.1.12.

Easterbrook J.D. & Klein S.L. 2008. Immunological mechanisms mediating hantavirus persistence in rodent reservoirs. PLoS Pathog 4(11), e1000172. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000172.

Eleftheriou A., Palme R. & Boonstra R. 2020. Assessment of the Stress Response in North American Deermice: Laboratory and Field Validation of Two Enzyme Immunoassays for Fecal Corticosterone Metabolites. Animals 10(7), 1120. doi: 10.3390/ani10071120

Fairbairn D.J. 1977. The spring decline in deer mice: death or dispersal? Canadian Journal of Zoology 55(1), 84–92. doi: 10.1139/z77-009.

Harper J.M. & Austad S.N. 2001. Effect of capture and season on fecal glucocorticoid levels in deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) and red-backed voles (Clethrionomys gapperi). General and Comparative Endocrinology 123(3), 337–344. doi: 10.1006/gcen.2001.7682.

Hopkins A.S., Whitetail-Eagle J., Corneli A.L., Person B., Ettestad P.J., Dimenna M., Norstog J., Creswell J., Khan A.S. & Olson J.G. 2002. Experimental evaluation of rodent exclusion methods to reduce hantavirus transmission to residents in a Native American community in New Mexico. Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases 2(2), 61–68. doi: 10.1089/153036602321131850.

Kuenzi A.J., Douglass R.J. & Bond C.W. 2000. Sin Nombre virus in deer mice captured inside homes, southwestern Montana. Emerging Infectious Diseases 6(4), 386–388. doi: 10.3201/eid0604.000411.

Kuenzi A.J., Douglass R.J., White D. Jr., Bond C.W. & Mills J.N. 2001. Antibody to Sin Nombre virus in rodents associated with peridomestic habitats in west central Montana. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 64(3–4), 137–146. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.2001.64.137.

Luis A.D., Douglass R.J., Hudson P.J., Mills J.N. & Bjørnstad O.N. 2012. Sin Nombre hantavirus decreases survival of male deer mice. Oecologia 169(2), 431–439. doi: 10.1007/s00442-011-2219-2.

Mills J.N., Yates T.L., Childs J.E., Parmenter R.R., Ksiazek T.G., Rollin P.E. & C. Peters. 1995. Guidelines for working with rodents potentially infected with hantavirus. Journal of Mammalogy 76(3), 716–722. doi: 10.2307/1382742.

Mills J.N., Yates T.L., Ksiazek T.G., Peters C.J. & Childs J.E. 1999. Long-term studies of hantavirus reservoir populations in the southwestern United States: rationale, potential, and methods. Emerging Infectious Diseases 5(1), 95–101. doi: 10.3201/eid0501.990111.

Millspaugh J.J. & Washburn B.E. 2004. Use of fecal glucocorticoid metabolite measures in conservation biology research: considerations for application and interpretation. General and Comparative Endocrinology 138(3), 189–199. doi: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2004.07.002.

Mumby H.S., Mar K.U., Thitaram C., Courtiol A., Towiboon P., Min-Oo Z., Htut-Aung Y., Brown J.L. & Lummaa V. 2015. Stress and body condition are associated with climate and demography in Asian elephants. Conservation Physiology 3(1), cov030. doi: 10.1093/conphys/cov030.

Pokharel S.S., Seshagiri P.B. & Sukumar R. 2017. Assessment of season-dependent body condition scores in relation to fecal glucocorticoid metabolites in free-ranging Asian elephants. Conservation Physiology 5(1), cox039. doi: 10.1093/conphys/cox039.

Rakotoniaina J.H., Kappeler P.M., Ravoniarimbinina P., Pechouskova E., Hämäläinen A.M., Grass J., Kirschbaum C. & Kraus C. 2016. Does habitat disturbance affect stress, body condition and parasitism in two sympatric lemurs? Conservation Physiology 4(1), cow034. doi: 10.1093/conphys/cow034.

R Development Core Team. 2009. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. ISBN 3-900051-07-0. Accessed on the internet at http://www.R-project.org

Sarkar D. 2008. Lattice: multivariate data visualization with R. New York: Springer.

Schountz T., Calisher C.H., Richens T.R., Rich A.A., Doty J.B., Hughes M.T. & Beaty B.J. 2007. Rapid field immunoassay for detecting antibody to Sin Nombre virus in deer mice. Emerging Infectious Diseases 13(10), 1604–1607. doi: 10.3201/eid1310.070356.

Touma C. & Palme R. 2005. Measuring fecal glucocorticoid metabolites in mammals and birds: the importance of validation. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1046(1), 54–74. doi: 10.1196/annals.1343.006.

Ullman-Culleré M.H. & Foltz C.J. 1999. Body condition scoring: a rapid and accurate method for assessing health status in mice. Comparative Medicine 49(3), 319–323.

Wickham H. 2009. ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Wywialowski A. 1987. Habitat structure and predators: choices and consequences for rodent habitat specialists and generalists. Oecologia 72(1), 39–45. doi: 10.1007/BF00385042.