Corticosterone is a glucocorticoid hormone associated with animal physiological stress responses, which in turn, are related to growth, survival, and reproduction. As a result, the hormone is often measured for ecological and conservation research. Narayan et al. 2019 recently reviewed the various methods of measuring corticosterone and their benefits and limitations. They advocate for non-invasive methods of measuring this hormone (such as urinary, skin and buccal swabs, and water-borne hormone monitoring) for amphibian conservation research because these non-lethal methods can be collected as a time series in the field with little handling, giving researchers a more complete picture of the potential sub-lethal effects of environmental stressors. To support their argument, they present two case studies on the effects of interspecies stressors in two threatened amphibian species, the Fiji Ground Frog, Cornufer vitianus (synonym Platymantis vitiana), and the San Marcos salamander, Eurycea nana, of Texas.
