Meeting Abstract

P2.46  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Patterns in Blood Parameters Associated with Stress Responses in Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) TRACY, C.R.; BARBER, A.M.; WAKELING, S.R.*; Univ. Nevada, Reno; Univ. Nevada, Reno; Univ. Nevada, Reno wakelin3@unr.nevada.edu

Conservation biology aims to prevent declines in healthy animal populations and to promote recovery of declining populations. A better understanding of physiology is important to the conservation of Nevada’s state reptile, the desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). Understanding stress physiology is especially important, because chronic stress suppresses the immune and reproductive systems of most vertebrates. However, short-term elevation of stress hormones can be beneficial in stressful situations by activating adaptive physiological processes, including the generation of blood glucose. Our research has focused on measuring baseline markers of the stress response in desert tortoise: blood glucose and the stress hormone corticosterone. Our research was conducted on routinely handled captive tortoises on the UNR campus. Single blood samples were collected from a group of thirteen animals to determine the correlation between blood glucose and corticosterone concentration. In a separate study, two groups of three animals were sampled at three times in a single day to determine diurnal changes in blood glucose and corticosterone. Blood glucose and corticosterone concentrations followed a similar diurnal pattern: higher levels in the morning and evening with the lowest levels in the middle of the day. These studies will provide information about average daily fluctuations in stress biomarkers within individuals, and will serve as the foundation for a larger study of handling stress in captive animals, which will be used in comparison to wild animals.