Pilot Study_data

We conducted a pilot study to assess the effects of varying doses of corticosterone implants on circulating hormone concentrations, and to identify when we would likely observe resulting changes in parasite burden. We tested the ability of subcutaneous hormone implants to elevate baseline corticosterone over three weeks, including sampling time points ~8 h, ~32 h, 7 d, 14 d, and 21 d post-implantation. We piloted three levels of 60-day slow release corticosterone implants (0.1 mg, 0.5 mg, and 1.5 mg corticosterone from Innovative Research of America, Sarasota, FL, USA), and compared their effects to sham-implant and no-implant controls. The data file contains hormone concentrations and other physiological measures taken throughout this pilot study.