Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue, Canada.
McGill Bird Observatory, Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue, Canada; Canadian Wildlife Service - National Capital Region, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol. 2020 Feb;240:110594. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2019.110594. Epub 2019 Oct 30.
Point-of-care devices offer the potential to democratize a suite of physiological endpoints and assess the nutritional state of wild animals through plasma metabolite profiling. Measurements of plasma metabolites typically occur on frozen tissue in the laboratory, thus dissociating measurements from field observations. Point-of-care devices, widely used in veterinary and human medicine, provide rapid results (seconds or minutes) allowing in situ measurements of wild animals in remote areas without the need for access to freezers. Using point-of-care devices, we measured glucose, triglyceride, cholesterol and β-hydroxybutyrate levels in plasma from 18 wild bird species spanning nine families and three orders. The values from six different point-of-care devices correlated strongly with one another, and with traditional laboratory measurements from stored plasma (R = 0.70-0.90). Although POC devices provided accurate relative values in wild birds, absolute values varied from laboratory measurements by up to 50% illustrating the need for calibration equations. Furthermore, three case studies showed the potential for point-of-care devices at research stations where participants do not have access to a lab and sample preservation is difficult: (i) at a remote seabird colony, birds that were provided with supplemental food had higher levels of glucose and lower β-hydroxybutyrate and cholesterol levels than unfed birds, suggesting they were in a better nutritional state; (ii) at a migration monitoring station, levels of triglycerides of two migratory songbirds increased with time of day, implying that they were fattening during stopover; and (iii) for diving seabirds, individuals that worked harder (shorter surface intervals) had higher glucose and lower β-hydroxybutyrate implying that nutritional state is an index of foraging effort and success. We demonstrate that point-of-care devices, once validated, can provide accurate measurements of the nutritional state of wild birds. Such real-time measurements can aid in ecological research and monitoring, care of wildlife at rehabilitation centres, and in veterinary medicine of exotics.
即时检测设备有望普及一系列生理终点检测，并通过血浆代谢物分析来评估野生动物的营养状态。通常，实验室会对冷冻组织中的血浆代谢物进行测量，这使测量与野外观察脱钩。即时检测设备在兽医和人类医学中广泛应用，能够提供快速（秒级或分钟级）的结果，无需使用冰箱即可在偏远地区对野生动物进行现场测量。我们使用即时检测设备测量了 18 种野生鸟类的血浆葡萄糖、甘油三酯、胆固醇和β-羟丁酸水平，涵盖了 9 个科和 3 个目。六种不同即时检测设备的检测值彼此之间以及与储存在冰箱中的血浆的传统实验室测量值密切相关（R=0.70-0.90）。尽管即时检测设备为野生鸟类提供了准确的相对值，但绝对值与实验室测量值相差可达 50%，这表明需要校准方程。此外，三个案例研究表明，即时检测设备在研究站具有应用潜力，在这些研究站，参与者无法进入实验室，样本保存也较为困难：（i）在偏远的海鸟聚居地，与未投喂的鸟类相比，获得补充食物的鸟类的葡萄糖水平更高，β-羟丁酸和胆固醇水平更低，这表明它们的营养状态更好；（ii）在迁徙监测站，两种迁徙鸣禽的甘油三酯水平随着时间的推移而增加，这表明它们在中途停留时正在增肥；（iii）对于潜水海鸟，工作更努力（表面间隔更短）的个体的葡萄糖水平更高，β-羟丁酸水平更低，这表明营养状态是觅食努力和成功的指标。我们证明，即时检测设备在经过验证后，可以提供准确的野生鸟类营养状态测量值。这种实时测量值有助于生态研究和监测、野生动物康复中心的护理，以及外来动物的兽医治疗。
