Behavioural and hormonal responses to capture stress in the male red-sided garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis

Abstract

We measured the behavioural and hormonal responses to capture stress in male red-sided garter snakes. Four hours of capture stress resulted in no suppression of mating behaviour relative to control individuals. In contrast, the same stress resulted in a significant increase in plasma levels of corticosterone and a significant decrease in plasma levels of testosterone. There was a significant negative correlation between plasma levels of corticosterone and testosterone in both control and capture-stress groups, suggesting that the increase in corticosterone directly drives the decrease in testosterone. While there was no relation between body size and initial plasma levels of the two steroids, longer individuals had a significantly greater increase in corticosterone following capture stress than did shorter individuals. Snakes display indeterminate growth, suggesting that older individuals have decreased sensitivity to negative feedback in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis and thus hypersecrete glucocorticoids. These results suggest that male red-sided garter snakes have uncoupled their behavioural stress response from their hormonal stress response to maximize reproductive opportunities.