Indicators of stress in sengis differ with sexe, stressor intensity and matrix measured

What is it about?

Glucocortioids are often used as an indicator of stress and can be measured in various matrixes, traditionally from blood or plasma but also urine or faeces. However, using such alternative matrices requires validation. We show that these measurements differ substantially between the sexes and matrices and that faeces is not a good matrix in the study species, at least not for the assays used while urines produces measurable responses, irrespective of the intensity of the stressor.

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Why is it important?

For purposes of animal welfare and conservation it is often important to measure stress of animals as indicated by increases of glucocorticoids. As the collection of blood for the determination of hormone titers is stressful in itself, non-invasive matrices (e.g. urine or faeces) are preferable but there use needs to be validated for each species. We show that urine is a more reliable source of glucocorticoid measures but also that the excretion of these hormones may differ between the sexes.

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