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Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru

Some large herbivores exhibit seasonal adjustments in their energy metabolism. Therefore, our aim was to determine if the llama (one of the most extensively kept livestock breeds) exhibits seasonal adjustment of their energy expenditure, body temperature and locomotion, under its natural high altitu...

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Autores principales: Riek, Alexander, Stölzl, Anna, Marquina Bernedo, Rodolfo, Ruf, Thomas, Arnold, Walter, Hambly, Catherine, Speakman, John R., Gerken, Martina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6411917/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30858417
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40576-9
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author Riek, Alexander
Stölzl, Anna
Marquina Bernedo, Rodolfo
Ruf, Thomas
Arnold, Walter
Hambly, Catherine
Speakman, John R.
Gerken, Martina
author_facet Riek, Alexander
Stölzl, Anna
Marquina Bernedo, Rodolfo
Ruf, Thomas
Arnold, Walter
Hambly, Catherine
Speakman, John R.
Gerken, Martina
author_sort Riek, Alexander
collection PubMed
description Some large herbivores exhibit seasonal adjustments in their energy metabolism. Therefore, our aim was to determine if the llama (one of the most extensively kept livestock breeds) exhibits seasonal adjustment of their energy expenditure, body temperature and locomotion, under its natural high altitude Andean habitat. For this purpose, energy expenditure, body temperature and locomotion were measured in seven non-pregnant llama dams for ten months on the Andean High Plateau (4400 m above sea level). Daily energy expenditure was measured as field metabolic rate using the doubly labelled water method at four different measurement times. Additionally, a telemetry system was used to continuously record activity, body temperature (3 min intervals) as well as the position (hourly) of each animal. The results show that llamas adjusted their body temperature and daily energy expenditure according to environmental conditions. Furthermore, llamas under high altitude Andean climatic conditions exhibited a pronounced daily rhythm in body temperature and activity, with low values at sunrise and increasing values towards sunset. Llamas also had remarkably low energy expenditure compared to other herbivores. Thus, despite the domestication process, llamas have not lost the ability to adjust their body temperature and daily energy expenditure under adverse environmental conditions, similar to some wild herbivores.
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spelling pubmed-64119172019-03-13 Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru Riek, Alexander Stölzl, Anna Marquina Bernedo, Rodolfo Ruf, Thomas Arnold, Walter Hambly, Catherine Speakman, John R. Gerken, Martina Sci Rep Article Some large herbivores exhibit seasonal adjustments in their energy metabolism. Therefore, our aim was to determine if the llama (one of the most extensively kept livestock breeds) exhibits seasonal adjustment of their energy expenditure, body temperature and locomotion, under its natural high altitude Andean habitat. For this purpose, energy expenditure, body temperature and locomotion were measured in seven non-pregnant llama dams for ten months on the Andean High Plateau (4400 m above sea level). Daily energy expenditure was measured as field metabolic rate using the doubly labelled water method at four different measurement times. Additionally, a telemetry system was used to continuously record activity, body temperature (3 min intervals) as well as the position (hourly) of each animal. The results show that llamas adjusted their body temperature and daily energy expenditure according to environmental conditions. Furthermore, llamas under high altitude Andean climatic conditions exhibited a pronounced daily rhythm in body temperature and activity, with low values at sunrise and increasing values towards sunset. Llamas also had remarkably low energy expenditure compared to other herbivores. Thus, despite the domestication process, llamas have not lost the ability to adjust their body temperature and daily energy expenditure under adverse environmental conditions, similar to some wild herbivores. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-03-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6411917/ /pubmed/30858417 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40576-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Riek, Alexander
Stölzl, Anna
Marquina Bernedo, Rodolfo
Ruf, Thomas
Arnold, Walter
Hambly, Catherine
Speakman, John R.
Gerken, Martina
Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru
title Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru
title_full Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru
title_fullStr Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru
title_full_unstemmed Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru
title_short Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru
title_sort energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the high andes of peru
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6411917/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30858417
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40576-9
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