Rates of human-induced environmental change continue increasing with human population size, potentially altering animal physiology and negatively affecting wildlife. Researchers often use glucocorticoid concentrations (hormones that can be associated with stressors) to gauge the impact of anthropogenic factors (e.g. urbanization, noise and light pollution). Yet, no general relationships between human-induced environmental change and glucocorticoids have emerged. Given the number of recent studies reporting baseline and stress-induced corticosterone (the primary glucocorticoid in birds and reptiles) concentrations worldwide, it is now possible to conduct large-scale comparative analyses to test for general associations between disturbance and baseline and stress-induced corticosterone across species. Additionally, we can control for factors that may influence context, such as life history stage, environmental conditions and urban adaptability of a species. Here, we take a phylogenetically informed approach and use data from HormoneBase to test if baseline and stress-induced corticosterone are valid indicators of exposure to human footprint index, human population density, anthropogenic noise and artificial light at night in birds and reptiles. Our results show a negative relationship between anthropogenic noise and baseline corticosterone for birds characterized as urban avoiders. While our results potentially indicate that urban avoiders are more sensitive to noise than other species, overall our study suggests that the relationship between human-induced environmental change and corticosterone varies across species and contexts; we found no general relationship between human impacts and baseline and stress-induced corticosterone in birds, nor baseline corticosterone in reptiles. Therefore, it should not be assumed that high or low levels of exposure to human-induced environmental change are associated with high or low corticosterone levels, respectively, or that closely related species, or even individuals, will respond similarly. Moving forward, measuring alternative physiological traits alongside reproductive success, health and survival may provide context to better understand the potential negative effects of human-induced environmental change.

中文翻译：

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鸟类和爬行动物的基线和压力诱导的皮质酮水平并不反映城市化水平。

随着人口规模的增加，人为引起的环境变化率不断增加，可能会改变动物的生理机能并对野生动物产生负面影响。研究人员经常使用糖皮质激素浓度（可能与压力源相关的激素）来衡量人为因素（例如城市化、噪音和光污染）的影响。然而，人类引起的环境变化与糖皮质激素之间尚未出现一般关系。鉴于最近有大量研究报告了全球基线和应激诱导的皮质酮（鸟类和爬行动物中的主要糖皮质激素）浓度，现在可以进行大规模比较分析，以测试干扰与基线和应激诱导的皮质酮之间的一般关联跨物种。此外，我们可以控制可能影响环境的因素，例如物种的生活史阶段、环境条件和城市适应性。在这里，我们采用系统发育学方法，并使用来自 HormoneBase 的数据来测试基线和应激诱导的皮质酮是否是鸟类和爬行动物暴露于人类足迹指数、人口密度、人为噪音和夜间人造光的有效指标。我们的结果显示，对于城市回避型鸟类来说，人为噪音与基线皮质酮之间存在负相关关系。虽然我们的结果可能表明，城市回避者比其他物种对噪音更敏感，但总体而言，我们的研究表明，人类引起的环境变化与皮质酮之间的关系因物种和环境而异；我们发现人类影响与鸟类的基线和应激诱导的皮质酮之间没有一般关系，爬行动物的基线皮质酮也没有发现一般关系。因此，不应假设高或低水平的暴露于人类引起的环境变化分别与高或低皮质酮水平相关，或者密切相关的物种甚至个体会有类似的反应。展望未来，测量替代生理特征以及生殖成功、健康和生存可能会为更好地理解人类引起的环境变化的潜在负面影响提供背景。