Physiological and Behavioral Effects of Repeated Handling and Short-Distance Translocations on Free-Ranging Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes (<i>Crotalus oreganus oreganus</i>)

Holding, Matthew L.; Frazier, Julius A.; Dorr, Scott W.; Henningsen, Sloane N.; Moore, Ignacio T.; Taylor, Emily N.

doi:10.1670/11-314

Cited by 40 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In both groups, CORT levels at all time points averaged below 100 ng/ml, which is similar to baseline field levels previously reported for C. oreganus (Lind et al 2010;Holding et al 2014a). This is despite our observations that treatment snakes often rattled in response to activation of the shaker unit, and one treatment snake defecated after the first vibrator activation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…The magnitude of elevated baseline CORT in the treatment snakes at this sample is within normal baseline levels based on reports from several species of free-ranging rattlesnakes, including the sister species C. oreganus (Holding et al 2014a;Schuett et al 2004;Lutterschmidt et al 2009, Lind et al 2010. As baseline CORT varies within inidividuals, within a population, and across seasons in these studies, it is difficult to attribute a specific value of baseline CORT to achieve a general classification of "chronically stressed".…”

Section: Cort Implant Treatment Elevated Blood Cort Levels In Treatmementioning

confidence: 68%

“…One possibility is that the snakes were stressed by the initial vibrator activation but had acclimated or habituated to vibrations by mid-treatment, so baseline CORT was not affected. It is also possible the vibrator device may have acted as a multiple-exposure acute stressor (see Lutterschmidt et al 2009;Holding et al 2014a;Holding et al 2014b) rather than a chronic stressor, with snakes' CORT elevating after a vibration bout and returning to baseline before blood was sampled. A recent study exposed captive garter snakes (Thamnophis elegans) to multiple-exposure acute stressors as a "chronic stress" treatment and also observed no change in baseline CORT, but observed differences in physiological responses such as wound healing and circulating metabolites in the "chronic stress" group compared to non-stressed controls (Neuman-Lee et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To evaluate potential effects of implant treatment on stress reactivity, a standardized acute stress series (Holding et al 2014a) was performed on each snake after collecting blood and Tb at sample 3 by placing each snake in a pillowcase in opaque buckets while the search for additional snakes continued. After one hour in the bucket, snakes had cloacal temperatures measured and were bled to obtain stressed samples.…”

Section: Acute Stress Seriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stressors are known to induce phenotypic plasticity in many vertebrate species, evidenced dramatically in smoltification of anadramous fishes in the transition from fresh to saltwater and in patterns of development and metamorphosis of amphibian larvae (reviewed in Wada 2008). Rattlesnakes show elevated levels of the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT) in response to transport in buckets (Holding et al 2014a), and…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Stress Ecology of the Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus and Crotalus Helleri)

Claunch¹

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Cort Implant Treatment Elevated Blood Cort Levels In Treatmementioning

confidence: 68%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Acute Stress Seriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Stress Ecology of the Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus and Crotalus Helleri)

Claunch¹

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Evaluating the thermal effects of translocation in a large‐bodied pitviper

2014

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Acute stressors can be costly, often requiring alteration of normal physiological processes to mitigate their effects. Animal translocation may be a very stressful event and result in a reduced ability to maintain homeostasis. The impacts of translocation on the thermal ecology of ectothermic vertebrates, which may rely on preferred habitats for thermoregulation, are currently unknown. In this study, 22 adult male Northern Pacific rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus oreganus) were implanted with automated temperature loggers and radio-tracked. Snakes were assigned to one of three treatments: translocation, handling control, and undisturbed control. Short-distance translocation (SDT) and handling treatments were applied weekly for 6 weeks. Hourly body temperature (Tb ) was recorded during the course of the study. Mean Tb was impacted in a time-dependent fashion, where translocated snakes had lower mean Tb than handled controls during the first week of the study only, especially the first 24 hr after translocation. Separating the dataset into day and night revealed that this effect was localized to Tb variation during the day only. Variance in temperature was not impacted by translocation or handling. Snake body mass and time of year were the major factors influencing the thermal profiles of these rattlesnakes. Thermal ecology in male rattlesnakes is resilient to SDT, suggesting that they quickly resume normal behaviors following repeated bouts of acute capture stress and disturbance of their spatial ecology. This study provides support for SDT as a safe measure for mitigating human-snake interactions and facilitating conservation practices regarding male snakes, which are the most frequently encountered sex.

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Does repeated human handling of study animals during the mating season affect their offspring?

Swierk

Langkilde

2018

J Exp Zool Pt A

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Minimizing disturbance of study animals is a major consideration in ethological and ecological research design. One nearly universal type of disturbance is the handling of study animals as a component of trial setup. Even low to moderate levels of handling can be a substantial stressor to study animals, which may negatively affect their offspring via maternal effects. Understanding how routine human handling and manipulation may affect the outcome of research studies is therefore critical for interpreting study outcomes. We tested whether repeatedly handling and manipulating (i.e., manually disengaging) amplexed pairs of wood frogs (Rana sylvatica [Lithobates sylvaticus]), which have an explosive breeding season, would affect their reproductive output and offspring fitness. Handling and manipulation did not alter any parameter that we measured: reproductive timing, hatching success, and offspring larval duration, survival, and size at metamorphosis. These results suggest that handling and manipulation by researchers may have a negligible effect on wood frog reproduction and offspring fitness. It is possible that many species that are commonly used in reproductive studies because they suppress behavioral and physiological responses during the mating season are likewise unaffected by human handling. Nevertheless, researchers should examine possible consequences of methodological interventions on their study species in order to determine any potential influence on their results. Having a broad understanding of these effects on species that have robust or dampened stress responsiveness during the breeding season would be useful for making generalizations about potential effects.

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Physiological and Behavioral Effects of Repeated Handling and Short-Distance Translocations on Free-Ranging Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus oreganus oreganus)

Cited by 40 publications

References 23 publications

Stress Ecology of the Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus and Crotalus Helleri)

Stress Ecology of the Pacific Rattlesnakes (Crotalus Oreganus and Crotalus Helleri)

Evaluating the thermal effects of translocation in a large‐bodied pitviper

Does repeated human handling of study animals during the mating season affect their offspring?

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