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Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis

Prehistoric colonization of East Polynesia represents the last and most extensive of human migrations into regions previously uninhabited. Although much of East Polynesia is tropical, the southern third, dominated by New Zealand—by far the largest Polynesian landmass—ranges from a warm- to cool-temp...

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Autores principales: Montenegro, Alvaro, Niclou, Alexandra, Anderson, Atholl, Fitzpatrick, Scott M., Ocobock, Cara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10337932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37437072
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287290
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author Montenegro, Alvaro
Niclou, Alexandra
Anderson, Atholl
Fitzpatrick, Scott M.
Ocobock, Cara
author_facet Montenegro, Alvaro
Niclou, Alexandra
Anderson, Atholl
Fitzpatrick, Scott M.
Ocobock, Cara
author_sort Montenegro, Alvaro
collection PubMed
description Prehistoric colonization of East Polynesia represents the last and most extensive of human migrations into regions previously uninhabited. Although much of East Polynesia is tropical, the southern third, dominated by New Zealand—by far the largest Polynesian landmass—ranges from a warm- to cool-temperate climate with some islands extending into the Subantarctic. The substantial latitudinal variation implies questions about biocultural adaptations of tropical people to conditions in which most of their familiar resources were absent and their agriculture marginal. Perhaps the most basic question, but one which has never been explored, is the extent to which sailing out of the tropics on long-distance colonizing voyages imposed physiological stress on canoe crews and passengers. In this paper we use trajectories of simulated voyages from Tahiti to New Zealand and Tahiti to Hawaii to obtain along-trip environmental parameters which are then used to model the energy expenditure of these long overseas journeys. Results show that travelers to New Zealand are exposed to much harsher environmental conditions, leading to significantly greater in-trip thermoregulatory demands. For both destinations, travelers with larger body sizes exhibit lower modeled heat loss and hence obtain an energetic advantage, with greater gains for females. Such physiological features, notably of Samoans who probably formed the founding population in East Polynesia, may help explain successful voyaging to temperate latitudes.
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spelling pubmed-103379322023-07-13 Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis Montenegro, Alvaro Niclou, Alexandra Anderson, Atholl Fitzpatrick, Scott M. Ocobock, Cara PLoS One Research Article Prehistoric colonization of East Polynesia represents the last and most extensive of human migrations into regions previously uninhabited. Although much of East Polynesia is tropical, the southern third, dominated by New Zealand—by far the largest Polynesian landmass—ranges from a warm- to cool-temperate climate with some islands extending into the Subantarctic. The substantial latitudinal variation implies questions about biocultural adaptations of tropical people to conditions in which most of their familiar resources were absent and their agriculture marginal. Perhaps the most basic question, but one which has never been explored, is the extent to which sailing out of the tropics on long-distance colonizing voyages imposed physiological stress on canoe crews and passengers. In this paper we use trajectories of simulated voyages from Tahiti to New Zealand and Tahiti to Hawaii to obtain along-trip environmental parameters which are then used to model the energy expenditure of these long overseas journeys. Results show that travelers to New Zealand are exposed to much harsher environmental conditions, leading to significantly greater in-trip thermoregulatory demands. For both destinations, travelers with larger body sizes exhibit lower modeled heat loss and hence obtain an energetic advantage, with greater gains for females. Such physiological features, notably of Samoans who probably formed the founding population in East Polynesia, may help explain successful voyaging to temperate latitudes. Public Library of Science 2023-07-12 /pmc/articles/PMC10337932/ /pubmed/37437072 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287290 Text en © 2023 Montenegro et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Montenegro, Alvaro
Niclou, Alexandra
Anderson, Atholl
Fitzpatrick, Scott M.
Ocobock, Cara
Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis
title Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis
title_full Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis
title_fullStr Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis
title_full_unstemmed Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis
title_short Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis
title_sort estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from tahiti to hawaii and new zealand, a simulation analysis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10337932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37437072
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287290
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