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Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation

Phenotypic convergence across distantly related taxa can be driven by similar selective pressures from the environment or intrinsic constraints. The roles of these processes on physiological strategies, such as homeothermy, are poorly understood. We studied the evolution of thermal properties of mam...

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Autores principales: Riddell, Eric A., Patton, James L., Beissinger, Steven R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10091991/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36221218
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/evo.14643
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author Riddell, Eric A.
Patton, James L.
Beissinger, Steven R.
author_facet Riddell, Eric A.
Patton, James L.
Beissinger, Steven R.
author_sort Riddell, Eric A.
collection PubMed
description Phenotypic convergence across distantly related taxa can be driven by similar selective pressures from the environment or intrinsic constraints. The roles of these processes on physiological strategies, such as homeothermy, are poorly understood. We studied the evolution of thermal properties of mammalian pelage in a diverse community of rodents inhabiting the Mojave Desert, USA. We used a heat flux device to measure the thermal insulation of museum specimens and determined whether thermal properties were associated with habitat preferences while assessing phylogenetic dependence. Species that prefer arid habitats exhibited lower conductivity and thinner pelage relative to species with other habitat preferences. Despite being thinner, the pelage of arid species exhibited comparable insulation to the pelage of the other species due to its lower conductivity. Thus, arid species have insulative pelage while simultaneously benefitting from thin pelage that promotes convective cooling. We found no evidence of intrinsic constraints or phylogenetic dependence, indicating pelage readily evolves to environmental pressures. Thermoregulatory simulations demonstrated that arid specialists reduced energetic costs required for homeothermy by 14.5% by evolving lower conductivity, providing support for adaptive evolution of pelage. Our study indicates that selection for lower energetic requirements of homeothermy has shaped evolution of pelage thermal properties.
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spelling pubmed-100919912023-04-13 Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation Riddell, Eric A. Patton, James L. Beissinger, Steven R. Evolution Original Articles Phenotypic convergence across distantly related taxa can be driven by similar selective pressures from the environment or intrinsic constraints. The roles of these processes on physiological strategies, such as homeothermy, are poorly understood. We studied the evolution of thermal properties of mammalian pelage in a diverse community of rodents inhabiting the Mojave Desert, USA. We used a heat flux device to measure the thermal insulation of museum specimens and determined whether thermal properties were associated with habitat preferences while assessing phylogenetic dependence. Species that prefer arid habitats exhibited lower conductivity and thinner pelage relative to species with other habitat preferences. Despite being thinner, the pelage of arid species exhibited comparable insulation to the pelage of the other species due to its lower conductivity. Thus, arid species have insulative pelage while simultaneously benefitting from thin pelage that promotes convective cooling. We found no evidence of intrinsic constraints or phylogenetic dependence, indicating pelage readily evolves to environmental pressures. Thermoregulatory simulations demonstrated that arid specialists reduced energetic costs required for homeothermy by 14.5% by evolving lower conductivity, providing support for adaptive evolution of pelage. Our study indicates that selection for lower energetic requirements of homeothermy has shaped evolution of pelage thermal properties. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-10-18 2022-12 /pmc/articles/PMC10091991/ /pubmed/36221218 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/evo.14643 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Evolution published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Riddell, Eric A.
Patton, James L.
Beissinger, Steven R.
Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
title Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
title_full Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
title_fullStr Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
title_full_unstemmed Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
title_short Thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
title_sort thermal adaptation of pelage in desert rodents balances cooling and insulation
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10091991/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36221218
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/evo.14643
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