AUTHORS: Holly Redmond; Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL Robin Warne; Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL Tadao Kishimoto; Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau; Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL
ABSTRACT: How animals move across a landscape is a result of interactions between internal factors, such as physiology, and external factors, such as environmental conditions. Despite the important implications of these interactions in the face of progressively altered physical and disease landscapes, few studies have examined how immune physiology and movement behaviors interrelate, or the context in which variation in such relationships occurs. In some species, immune condition is shown to be influenced by allocation trade-offs, for example energetically favoring migration success at the cost of immune function. Immune condition itself can also be influential, for example in some species it can reduce cognitive ability and alter social behavior, thereby impacting animal movement. We seek to better understand the dynamics between immune physiology and movement in a heavily managed species: the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus).
To explore these relationships, we will first investigate how three immune-related biomarkers (cortisol, haptoglobin, and natural antibodies) interrelate to characterize immunological profiles for white-tailed deer (n=92) captured in 2023 and 2024 from two free-ranging populations in central and southern Illinois. We will then investigate how deer immunologic profiles relate to their movement across several metric categories (including space use, activity level, and consistency of behavior) and assess the contexts in which intra-individual, inter-individual, and inter-population variation in these relationships occurs. This work will contribute to a more holistic understanding of the dynamics between immune physiology and movement in an economically and ecologically significant species.
