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- All Subjects: Urbanization
- All Subjects: Vasodilation
- Creators: Sweazea, Karen
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a chow diet or a high fat diet (HFD) for ten weeks. Endothelium-dependent vasodilation was measured in isolated mesenteric arterioles that were treated with or without 80 µg/ml sumac in the superfusate throughout the experiment.
Results: Sumac did not improve vasodilation or in ex vivo arteries from rats fed a high fat diet. There were trends of improved vasodilation in sumac treated vessels from high fat diet rats, but sumac did not significantly improve vasodilation. In rats fed a chow diet, sumac prevented phenylephrine (PE) constriction in the vascular tissue. The most likely cause for this is the presence of Gallic acid in sumac. Another possible explanation is the presence of nitrates in sumac which may have prevented PE vasoconstriction.
Conclusions: Sumac did not significantly improve vasodilation in isolated arteries from rats fed a high fat diet. The results are inconclusive for the improvement of symptoms or risk of vascular dementia. In vivo treatment with sumac should be tested as results may differ.
Bioindicators of wildlife health are useful tools for studying the viability of various organisms and populations, and can include a range of phenotypic variables, such as behavior, body size, and physiological parameters, such as circulating hormones and nutrients. Few studies have investigated the utility of total plasma protein as a predictor of environmental or nutritional variation among birds, as well as variation across different seasons and life-history stages. Here I examined relationships between plasma protein and season, urbanization, sex, body condition, molt status, and disease state in house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus). I sampled blood from house finches across three seasons (winter, summer and fall 2021) and measured plasma protein levels using a Bradford assay. I also collected data including condition, sex, and poxvirus infection state at capture, as well as fecal samples to assess gut parasitism (coccidiosis). During the fall season I also estimated molt status, as number of actively growing feathers. I found circulating plasma protein concentration to be lower in the fall during molt than during winter or summer. I also found a significant relationship between circulating protein levels and capture site, as well as novel links to molt state and pox presence, with urban birds, those infected with pox, and those in more intense molt having higher protein levels. My results support the hypotheses that plasma protein concentration can be indicative of a bird’s body molt (which demands considerable protein for feather synthesis) and degree of habitat urbanization, although future work is needed to determine why protein levels were higher in virus-infected birds.