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Environmental Stressors
and Innate Immunity: Is
there a correlation?
Nora Egan Demers
Florida Gulf Coast University
2000
How do organisms respond to
environmental stressors?
Is innate immunity a good indicator to
monitor ecosystem health?
 Are innate defense mechanisms suppressed
in chronically stressed organisms (in vitro
and in vivo assessment) from disturbed or
polluted sites compared to pristine sites?

2000
Social
hierarchy
interactions
Handling
STRESS
Crowding
2000
Habitat
Degradation
Pollution
PredatorPrey
interactions
Habitat fragmentation



Pine uplands
Threatened by
development
home to many
threatened and
endangered
species
Gopher tortoise




Species of special
concern in Florida
Keystone species
(burrows home to
numerous others)
Mitigation parks to
protect
Long lived
Commensals


Burrows home to
>300 invertebrates
vertebrates:
–
–
–
–
–
indigo snake
gopher frog
mice & rats
toads
birds (wren, quail,
owl)
Gopherus polyphemus



Many afflicted with
URTD
caused by
Mycoplasma
agassizii
Disease incidence
linked to stressors
Assays to monitor innate immunity
using non-lethal blood samples
 cortisol
concentrations
 catecholamine concentrations
 complete blood cell count
 plasma lysozyme activity
 alpha2-macroglobulin protease
inhibitor activity
2000
Plasma proteins of interest
–C3
–CRP
–fibronectin fragments
–mannose binding protein
–Heat shock proteins
–antibody
2000
How to monitor innate immunity
in ecosystems?



2000
Develop battery of assays (non-lethal
samples) to monitor in other species
Collaborate with field biologists, wildlife
biologsts, conservation biologists, zoos,
Audubon, etc. -collect blood samples from
organisms in pristine and disturbed sites
Realize importance of both acute and chronic
stressors on responses
What we can learn:
How do organisms immune systems
respond to stressors?
 How do those responses influence survival?
 Can monitoring innate immune mechanisms
serve as an early indicator for ecosystem
health?
 Evolution of innate immunity in vertebrates

2000
2000