Reducing food stress and parasitism may have unexpected consequences on faecal corticosterone in a wild rodent

Abstract

In wild animals, glucocorticoid hormones play a key role in responses to environmental stressors and the maintenance of homeostasis, allocating energy between energy-demanding processes. Although acute rises in glucocorticoids are beneficial for short-term survival, prolonged exposure can be detrimental to reproduction and survival. Thus, understanding the factors driving glucocorticoid concentrations is crucial for understanding key processes in ecology and evolution. Here, we examined how manipulation of two environmental stressors - food availability and parasite burden, influence levels of faecal corticosterone in a wild population of wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus). To do so, we experimentally altered nutrition via food supplementation and reduced gastrointestinal nematode infection by anthelmintic treatment, using Heligmosomoides polygyrus as an indicator of treatment efficacy. Faecal corticosterone was not found to be impacted by food supplementation or anthelminthic treatment. However, our results may be mediated by variation in resource availability or masked by other factors that affect corticosterone. For example, corticosterone declined seasonally and was higher in adult, female mice. While we expected higher food availability and lower worm burden to decrease stress, putatively higher rates of reproduction in food supplemented areas could neutralise any decreases in corticosterone associated with alleviation of food and parasite stress. Thus, alleviating stress in the wild may have unintended consequences on fitness.