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Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer

BACKGROUND: Restricted space and close contact with conspecifics in captivity may be stressful for musk deer, as they are highly territorial and solitary in the wild. So we tested the effects of crowding on stress of forest musk deer (Moschus berezovskii) in heterosexual groups, using fecal cortisol...

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Autores principales: He, Lan, Wang, Wen-Xia, Li, Lin-Hai, Liu, Bao-Qing, Liu, Gang, Liu, Shu-Qiang, Qi, Lei, Hu, De-Fu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222733/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25418206
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/0717-6287-47-48
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author He, Lan
Wang, Wen-Xia
Li, Lin-Hai
Liu, Bao-Qing
Liu, Gang
Liu, Shu-Qiang
Qi, Lei
Hu, De-Fu
author_facet He, Lan
Wang, Wen-Xia
Li, Lin-Hai
Liu, Bao-Qing
Liu, Gang
Liu, Shu-Qiang
Qi, Lei
Hu, De-Fu
author_sort He, Lan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Restricted space and close contact with conspecifics in captivity may be stressful for musk deer, as they are highly territorial and solitary in the wild. So we tested the effects of crowding on stress of forest musk deer (Moschus berezovskii) in heterosexual groups, using fecal cortisol analysis as a non-invasive method. 32 healthy adults during non-breeding seasons were chose as our experimental objects. Group 1 was defined as higher crowding condition, with 10-15 m(2)/deer (6 enclosures, 10♀ and 6♂); group 2 was defined as lower crowding condition, with 23-33 m(2)/deer (6 enclosures, 10♀ and 6♂). Every enclosure contained 1 male and 3 female. These patterns had been existed for years. RESULTS: The results showed that females in lower crowding condition (217.1 ± 9.5 ug/g) had significantly higher fecal cortisol levels than those in higher crowding condition (177.2 ± 12.1 ug/g). Interestingly, crowding seemed have no effect on male fecal cortisol levels (148.1 ± 9.1 ug/g and 140.5 ± 13.3 ug/g, respectively). At both groups, cortisol was significantly lower in males than in females. CONCLUSIONS: These results showed that chronic crowding may affect stress status of captive forest musk deer. The captive environment should consider the space need for musk deer.
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spelling pubmed-42227332014-11-07 Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer He, Lan Wang, Wen-Xia Li, Lin-Hai Liu, Bao-Qing Liu, Gang Liu, Shu-Qiang Qi, Lei Hu, De-Fu Biol Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Restricted space and close contact with conspecifics in captivity may be stressful for musk deer, as they are highly territorial and solitary in the wild. So we tested the effects of crowding on stress of forest musk deer (Moschus berezovskii) in heterosexual groups, using fecal cortisol analysis as a non-invasive method. 32 healthy adults during non-breeding seasons were chose as our experimental objects. Group 1 was defined as higher crowding condition, with 10-15 m(2)/deer (6 enclosures, 10♀ and 6♂); group 2 was defined as lower crowding condition, with 23-33 m(2)/deer (6 enclosures, 10♀ and 6♂). Every enclosure contained 1 male and 3 female. These patterns had been existed for years. RESULTS: The results showed that females in lower crowding condition (217.1 ± 9.5 ug/g) had significantly higher fecal cortisol levels than those in higher crowding condition (177.2 ± 12.1 ug/g). Interestingly, crowding seemed have no effect on male fecal cortisol levels (148.1 ± 9.1 ug/g and 140.5 ± 13.3 ug/g, respectively). At both groups, cortisol was significantly lower in males than in females. CONCLUSIONS: These results showed that chronic crowding may affect stress status of captive forest musk deer. The captive environment should consider the space need for musk deer. BioMed Central 2014-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4222733/ /pubmed/25418206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/0717-6287-47-48 Text en © He et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
He, Lan
Wang, Wen-Xia
Li, Lin-Hai
Liu, Bao-Qing
Liu, Gang
Liu, Shu-Qiang
Qi, Lei
Hu, De-Fu
Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
title Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
title_full Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
title_fullStr Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
title_full_unstemmed Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
title_short Effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
title_sort effects of crowding and sex on fecal cortisol levels of captive forest musk deer
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222733/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25418206
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/0717-6287-47-48
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