Temperature and heart rate as stress indicators of handled common eider

Cabanac, Arnaud; Guillemette, Magella

doi:10.1016/s0031-9384(01)00586-8

Cited by 86 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Recently, emotions and empathy in animals have been discussed (Panksepp 1989;Preston & de Waal 2002;Paul et al 2005;de Waal 2008). Affective states and emotional arousal can be assessed via physiological and behavioural parameters in humans and non-human animals (Blix et al 1974; Aureli et al 1999;Cabanac & Guillemette 2001;Désiré et al 2004;Fallani et al 2007). It was suggested that the behavioural expression of emotions may be contagious and thereby affect the emotional states of bystanders (Darwin 1872;Hatfield et al 1994;Preston & de Waal 2002;de Waal 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heart rate modulation in bystanding geese watching social and non-social events

Wascher

Scheiber²,

Kotrschal

2008

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Simply observing other individuals interacting has been shown to affect subsequent behaviour and also hormones in 'bystander' individuals. However, immediate physiological responses of an observer have been hardly investigated. Here we present results on individuals' heart rate (HR) responses during various situations, which occur regularly in a flock of greylag geese (Anser anser, e.g. agonistic encounters, vehicles passing by). We recorded simultaneously HR and behaviour of 21 semi-tame free-roaming geese, equipped with fully implanted transmitters. We considered 304 social and 81 non-social events during which the focal individuals did not respond behaviourally. Independent of the spatial distance to the event, these HR responses were significantly greater in social contexts (e.g. departing or landing geese, agonistic interactions) than in non-social situations (e.g. vehicles passing by, thunder). Focal individuals showed a significantly higher maximum HR as well as a greater HR increase in response to agonistic interactions, in which the pair partner or a family member was involved, as compared with a non-affiliated goose. Also, HR was significantly higher when the bystander watched non-affiliated geese interacting, which were higher ranking than the focal. We conclude that these differences are due to different relevance of the recorded events for the focal individual, depending on the individuals involved in the observed interaction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heart rate modulation in bystanding geese watching social and non-social events

Wascher

Scheiber²,

Kotrschal

2008

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…SIH typically raises core body temperature by 0.5-1.5 °C within 10-15 min of an acute stressor 10 . It is a relatively well documented phenomenon that a commonly applied experimental stressor of catching and handling an animal can raise core body temperature in a range of mammal and bird species [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] . Importantly, SIH correlates with other established indicators of stress, such as heart rate 18 , glucocorticoid levels 19 and behavior 20,21 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Imaging to Study Stress Non-invasively in Unrestrained Birds

Jerem

Herborn

McCafferty

et al. 2015

JoVE

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Stress, a central concept in biology, describes a suite of emergency responses to challenges. Among other responses, stress leads to a change in blood flow that results in a net influx of blood to key organs and an increase in core temperature. This stress-induced hyperthermia is used to assess stress. However, measuring core temperature is invasive. As blood flow is redirected to the core, the periphery of the body can cool. This paper describes a protocol where peripheral body temperature is measured non-invasively in wild blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) using infrared thermography. In the field we created a set-up bringing the birds to an ideal position in front of the camera by using a baited box. The camera takes a short thermal video recording of the undisturbed bird before applying a mild stressor (closing the box and therefore capturing the bird), and the bird's response to being trapped is recorded. The bare skin of the eye-region is the warmest area in the image. This allows an automated extraction of the maximum eye-region temperature from each image frame, followed by further steps of manual data filtering removing the most common sources of errors (motion blur, blinking). This protocol provides a time series of eye-region temperature with a fine temporal resolution that allows us to study the dynamics of the stress response non-invasively. Further work needs to demonstrate the usefulness of the method to assess stress, for instance to investigate whether eye-region temperature response is proportional to the strength of the stressor. If this can be confirmed, it will provide a valuable alternative method of stress assessment in animals and will be useful to a wide range of researchers from ecologists, conservation biologists, physiologists to animal welfare researchers.

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“…In most species, the rise in glucocorticoid occurs within 3 min following handling, with a return to baseline occurring within a few hours (Silverin 1998). High glucocorticoid levels are often also associated with a rise in body temperature (Cabanac and Aizawa 2000;Cabanac and Guillemette 2001), It is, however, usually assumed that bleeding and handling will have no long-term consequences (e.g. Hoysak and Weatherhead 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Birds, like other animals, react to life threatening situations with behavioural and physiological responses. Following handling, Eider Ducks Somateria mollissima display an elevated heart rate for 2-3 min without any visible motor response (Cabanac and Guillemette 2001). In Great Tits Parus major, breath rate has been measured to look at short-term stress (Carere et al 2001;Carere and Van Oers 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term effects of repeated handling and bleeding in wild caught Great Tits Parus major

Oers

Carere

2007

J Ornithol

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Handling and bleeding are frequently used procedures in avian research and several studies show that they can exert short-term effects, such as elevation in corticosterone levels. However, the long-term effects of exposure to such manipulations are largely unknown, but could have important implications, especially for much of the long-term research on birds and experiments that involve longitudinal assessments. In this study, we evaluated the effect of handling and bleeding on some physiological and behavioural parameters. Hand-reared Great Tits Parus major originating from wild nests were used in two different experiments for other purposes. In these experiments, the birds were exposed to different frequencies of bleeding and handling events across a period of 45 days. The ''high stress'' group experienced a total of seven times handling and five times bleeding, while a ''low stress'' group was handled three times and bled only once. Thirty days after the experiments, when caught and handled from a cage, individuals of the high stress group were easier to catch, displayed significantly higher breath rates, and were more docile than individuals of the low stress group. No differences in body mass were detected. These results indicate that repeated manipulations cause evident long-term changes in coping with such procedures, which are likely due to learning effects, and provide empirical evidence that the past experimental history of an animal has to be taken into account in subsequent experiments.

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Temperature and heart rate as stress indicators of handled common eider

Cited by 86 publications

References 13 publications

Heart rate modulation in bystanding geese watching social and non-social events

Heart rate modulation in bystanding geese watching social and non-social events

Thermal Imaging to Study Stress Non-invasively in Unrestrained Birds

Long-term effects of repeated handling and bleeding in wild caught Great Tits Parus major

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