Effect of Endogenous Faecal Glucocorticoid Metabolites on Reproduction in Wild Pigs - A Non Invasive Approach

Boon Allwin,Jayathangaraj Mg

doi:10.4172/2157-7579.1000307

Abstract

Wild pigs are found to be the most prolific, very intelligent and secretive. These animals are adaptive ecological generalists and survive in wide range of habitats worldwide. The reproductive traits of wild pigs are extraordinary showing high prolificacy. Corticosteroids can exert inhibitory and facilitory effects on reproduction. In order to assess the attributable stress on reproduction a non-invasive method of assessing faecal glucocorticoid metabolites was applied in this study. Samples from wild pigs from three different regions were collected and were subjected to Enzyme Linked Imuno Sorbent Assay (ELISA). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of stress on reproduction in wild pigs. Corticosteroids may act at the level of the ovary to suppress aromatase activity and thereby reduce the elevated circulating estrogens considered by many to be responsible for hyper secretion of Lutenizing Hormone (LH). Interestingly the acute level of stress is found to be facilitory and the chronic found to be inhibitory.

Highlights

Wild pig (Sus scrofa) populations have been reported to fluctuate greatly in size
Faecal cortisol of wild pigs The faecal samples of wild pigs obtained from adjoining areas of Mudumalai, Sathyamangalam and Anaimalai wildlife regions were processed and subsequently subjected to estimation of cortisol concentration by using the Enzyme Linked Imuno Sorbent Assay (ELISA) kit (DSI-EIA- STEROIDCORTISOL EHE-151)
On Comparison of mean faecal cortisol among wild pigs of adjoining regions, the statistical analysis revealed absence of variations between the wild pigs of all the three different adjoining areas (Table 1) that proved that the stress was uniform in all these areas concerned

Summary

Introduction

Wild pig (Sus scrofa) populations have been reported to fluctuate greatly in size. Such changes are due to interactive variations in climatic, anthropogenic, epidemic and, to a certain degree, biocentric factors [1]. Such external influences can result in high levels of mortality being realized within a wild pig population. Because of their high reproductive potential, wild pig populations are resilient with the ability to rapidly recover from such dramatic reductions. Understanding the population demographics and dynamics of this invasive species is critical to being able to successfully manage or control local numbers of these animals

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