Studies On Fecal Steroids Of Crested Ibis (Nipponia Nippon)

Crested Ibis (Nipponia nippon) is a world’s endangered species (IUCN,2012), and the class I national protection wild animal, the living status of Crested Ibis has been one of the key fields in conservation biology research, After the efforts of more than30years, the saving and protection on Crested Ibis has showed significant effect (Ding,2010), and we have set up the artificial populations in Beijing, Shaanxi, Henan and Zhejiang provincesuccessively, the number has reached more than700(Lu Jing,2010), at the same time, the caged crested ibis and the associated ecological tourism projects have been carried out.The research of steroid hormones is important to measure its breeding, stress response, and protection. Due to the particularity that crested ibis is a world’s endangered species, sampling method such as blood collection does not accord with the requirement of crested ibis’s protection, a non-invasive detection technology must be developed.Based on a non-invasive sampling method, we can explore and establish the methods of extracting and detecting crested ibis’s fecal steroids hormone; basic data for the protection and daily monitoring of Crested Ibis by determination of steroid hormone could be provided; we can explore the regulating effect on reproduction of crested ibis by monitoring sex hormone levels; In addition, to evaluate the tourist disturbance to the crested ibis, we have assayed the corticosteroneconcentration in feces. Therefore, this study collected the feces of Crested Ibis in the Crested Ibis National Nature Reserve during the non-breeding period in Hanzhong, Shaanxi province(from June2011to February2012), then determined in the laboratory.The main results are as follows:1.In the non-breeding period (from June2011to February2012), we dectected the changing of fecal corticosterone concentrations(FCC)of Crested Ibis in exhibition cages The result obtained by the Pearson correlation analysis showed significant correlations between tourist number and FCC of Crested Ibis raised in the exhibition cages during the whole non-breeding period(r=0.853, P=0.005<0.05).It showed that theStress Response of Crested Ibis was influenced by visitors. Supervisor during this study covers the four festivals (the Mid-Autumn festival, National Day and New Year’s day, Spring Festival), during these festivals, FCC ofcrested ibisin exhibition cageincreased with the increase of the number of tourists, it showed that the stress response of crested ibis was influenced by tourists.It is important to note that there was not too many tourists during this study in theShaanxi HanzhongCrested Ibis National Nature Reserve, evenin holidays and the number was30-80. Sofew tourists can impact on the excitability of crested ibis, how about the breeding season of crested ibis? Such as the ching Ming festival and "May Day", even the government of yangxian held "day lily festival" and "pear flower festival" every year to attractlarge-scale tourism activities such as shaanxi, sichuan and even the tourists all over the country, in April5,2012, the number oftourists reached1008, the number of tourists per day during the "May Day" was more than500people. So many tourists to visit (and take photos, noise) for breeding crested ibis could cause greater interference, it is necessary to detect the FCC of crested ibis in breeding season, to formulate the reasonable ecotourism management approach about crested ibis and even limit the number during breeding crested ibis tourists.2.The results of detecting the sex hormones in feces of male and female Crested Ibis showed that there were phase changes in the whole year of Testosterone, estradiol and progesterone. The content of testosterone increased in the egg layingand maintained a high level during the incubation period in female. For male Crested Ibis, the content of testosteronereduced during the mating period and maintained in high level during the brooding period and then reduced in mating period. The content of estradiol maintained a high level before and during the courtship period and decreased after the egg laying period in female; no obvious change was found in male. The content of progesterone increased in brooding period in female and similartendency wasshowed in male. By detecting the level of sex hormone, we can know the role of sex hormones in regulatingthe physiology and indicating the reproductive and physiological states of Crested Ibis.