Adrenal glands Feather “time”

FIELD BIOLOGY & METHODOLOGYFall 2015 Althoff

Lecture

18

Nutritional & Health StatusPart II

Assessing Health/Stress Levels

• Two basic approaches:

1) assess _________________ (invasive)

2) assess from _______________

(non-invasive)

1

2

______________ – Basic Anatomy & Function

• Located on the anterior end of the kidneys

• Cortex (outer layer) and Medulla (inner layer)

• Controlled by input from the hypothalamus

Adrenal CORTEXAdrenal MEDULLA

HYPOTHALAMUS

Anterior p

ituita

ry

• GLUCOCORTICOIDS --protein & fat metabolism instead of glucose breakdown --immune cells are suppressed

• MINERALOCORTICOIDS--Na+ and H20 are

reabsorbed by kidneys--Blood volume and

pressure increase

HYPOTHALAMUS ? Adrenal Glands

ADRENAL”___________” RESPONSE

• Heartbeat & blood pressure increase

• Blood glucose level rises

• Muscles become energized

ADRENAL MEDULLASHORT TERM

ADRENAL CORTEXLONG TERM

Adrenal Glands

• Respond to stress big time!• Adrenal cortex & adrenal medulla have ____

“interaction”• Controlled by ____________________• Hypothalamus > Adrenal medulla

communication via sympathetic fibers (i.e., nervous system “communication”)

• Hypothalamus > Anterior Pituitary > Adrenal cortex via blood stream

________________ Levels Indicator of __________ level

• Glucocorticoid metaobolites used ___________ adrenocortical activity

• Some started with collecting feces/pellets produced by wild animals (usually ungulates)….now a move to do some analysis of feces from captive animals to determine types of variation = __________________

• One recommendation—”__________” pellets as “not all pellets are uniform” from a pellet group

• Again shows promise as a ____________…plus big advantage that it is ______________.

Ptilochronlogy

• “___________________” is translation for Ptilochronology

• Idea and most extensive work in investigation “feather time” done by Thomas Grubb (now retired Ohio State professor)

• First conception of it: 1987

• Basically: faint series of regularly ___________ _______________________ oriented almost ________________to the shaft (rachis) of the feather

Ptilochronlogy…background

• Fairly common knowledge: bird will _________ a feather to replace a lost one

• Feather regeneration requires __________ and ______________

• If such energy and nutrients are in ___________, then the feather will likely grow more ________

• By measuring the _________________, one has an index to the energy and nutrients available for feather growth

Ptilochronlogy…some more “theory”

• If one removes an original feather (and obviously knows when they removed it), one knows the time interval in which the replacement was grown

• One can obtain an index of nutritional effects of any particular environmental condition one measures while the feather is being grown

Ptilochronlogy… some ________________• Evaluate habitat quality

• Nutritional consequences of self-cached foods

• Social behavior

• Individual quality

• Reproductive effort

• Nesting condition