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Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India

Tiger (Panthera tigris), an endangered species, is under severe threat from poaching, habitat loss, prey depletion and habitat disturbance. Such factors have been reported causing local extermination of tiger populations including in one of the most important reserves in India, namely Sariska Tiger...

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Autores principales: Bhattacharjee, Subhadeep, Kumar, Vinod, Chandrasekhar, Mithileshwari, Malviya, Manjari, Ganswindt, Andre, Ramesh, Krishnamurthy, Sankar, Kalyanasundaram, Umapathy, Govindhaswamy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4465644/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127626
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author Bhattacharjee, Subhadeep
Kumar, Vinod
Chandrasekhar, Mithileshwari
Malviya, Manjari
Ganswindt, Andre
Ramesh, Krishnamurthy
Sankar, Kalyanasundaram
Umapathy, Govindhaswamy
author_facet Bhattacharjee, Subhadeep
Kumar, Vinod
Chandrasekhar, Mithileshwari
Malviya, Manjari
Ganswindt, Andre
Ramesh, Krishnamurthy
Sankar, Kalyanasundaram
Umapathy, Govindhaswamy
author_sort Bhattacharjee, Subhadeep
collection PubMed
description Tiger (Panthera tigris), an endangered species, is under severe threat from poaching, habitat loss, prey depletion and habitat disturbance. Such factors have been reported causing local extermination of tiger populations including in one of the most important reserves in India, namely Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in northwestern India. Consequently, tigers were reintroduced in STR between 2008 and 2010, but inadequate breeding success was observed over the years, thus invoking an investigation to ascertain physiological correlates. In the present study, we report glucocorticoid stress responses of the reintroduced tigers in relation to anthropogenic disturbance in the STR from 2011 to 2013. We found anthropogenic disturbance such as encounter rates of livestock and humans, distance to roads and efforts to kill domestic livestock associated with an elevation in fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) concentrations in the monitored tigers. In this regard, female tigers seem more sensitive to such disturbance than males. It was possible to discern that tiger’s fGCM levels were significantly positively related to the time spent in disturbed areas. Resulting management recommendations include relocation of villages from core areas and restriction of all anthropogenic activities in the entire STR.
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spelling pubmed-44656442015-06-25 Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India Bhattacharjee, Subhadeep Kumar, Vinod Chandrasekhar, Mithileshwari Malviya, Manjari Ganswindt, Andre Ramesh, Krishnamurthy Sankar, Kalyanasundaram Umapathy, Govindhaswamy PLoS One Research Article Tiger (Panthera tigris), an endangered species, is under severe threat from poaching, habitat loss, prey depletion and habitat disturbance. Such factors have been reported causing local extermination of tiger populations including in one of the most important reserves in India, namely Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in northwestern India. Consequently, tigers were reintroduced in STR between 2008 and 2010, but inadequate breeding success was observed over the years, thus invoking an investigation to ascertain physiological correlates. In the present study, we report glucocorticoid stress responses of the reintroduced tigers in relation to anthropogenic disturbance in the STR from 2011 to 2013. We found anthropogenic disturbance such as encounter rates of livestock and humans, distance to roads and efforts to kill domestic livestock associated with an elevation in fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) concentrations in the monitored tigers. In this regard, female tigers seem more sensitive to such disturbance than males. It was possible to discern that tiger’s fGCM levels were significantly positively related to the time spent in disturbed areas. Resulting management recommendations include relocation of villages from core areas and restriction of all anthropogenic activities in the entire STR. Public Library of Science 2015-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4465644/ /pubmed/26061171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127626 Text en © 2015 Bhattacharjee et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bhattacharjee, Subhadeep
Kumar, Vinod
Chandrasekhar, Mithileshwari
Malviya, Manjari
Ganswindt, Andre
Ramesh, Krishnamurthy
Sankar, Kalyanasundaram
Umapathy, Govindhaswamy
Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India
title Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India
title_full Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India
title_fullStr Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India
title_full_unstemmed Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India
title_short Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India
title_sort glucocorticoid stress responses of reintroduced tigers in relation to anthropogenic disturbance in sariska tiger reserve in india
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4465644/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127626
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