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Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations
Environmental and biotic pressures impose homeostatic costs on all organisms. The energetic costs of maintaining high body temperatures (T(b)) render endotherms sensitive to pressures that increase foraging costs. In response, some mammals become more heterothermic to conserve energy. We measured T(...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8463709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34561468 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96828-0 |
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author | Morales, Javier Omar Walker, Nikki Warne, Robin W. Boyles, Justin G. |
author_facet | Morales, Javier Omar Walker, Nikki Warne, Robin W. Boyles, Justin G. |
author_sort | Morales, Javier Omar |
collection | PubMed |
description | Environmental and biotic pressures impose homeostatic costs on all organisms. The energetic costs of maintaining high body temperatures (T(b)) render endotherms sensitive to pressures that increase foraging costs. In response, some mammals become more heterothermic to conserve energy. We measured T(b) in banner-tailed kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spectabilis) to test and disentangle the effects of air temperature and moonlight (a proxy for predation risk) on thermoregulatory homeostasis. We further perturbed homeostasis in some animals with chronic corticosterone (CORT) via silastic implants. Heterothermy increased across summer, consistent with the predicted effect of lunar illumination (and predation), and in the direction opposite to the predicted effect of environmental temperatures. The effect of lunar illumination was also evident within nights as animals maintained low T(b) when the moon was above the horizon. The pattern was accentuated in CORT-treated animals, suggesting they adopted an even further heightened risk-avoidance strategy that might impose reduced foraging and energy intake. Still, CORT-treatment did not affect body condition over the entire study, indicating kangaroo rats offset decreases in energy intake through energy savings associated with heterothermy. Environmental conditions receive the most attention in studies of thermoregulatory homeostasis, but we demonstrated here that biotic factors can be more important and should be considered in future studies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8463709 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-84637092021-09-29 Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations Morales, Javier Omar Walker, Nikki Warne, Robin W. Boyles, Justin G. Sci Rep Article Environmental and biotic pressures impose homeostatic costs on all organisms. The energetic costs of maintaining high body temperatures (T(b)) render endotherms sensitive to pressures that increase foraging costs. In response, some mammals become more heterothermic to conserve energy. We measured T(b) in banner-tailed kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spectabilis) to test and disentangle the effects of air temperature and moonlight (a proxy for predation risk) on thermoregulatory homeostasis. We further perturbed homeostasis in some animals with chronic corticosterone (CORT) via silastic implants. Heterothermy increased across summer, consistent with the predicted effect of lunar illumination (and predation), and in the direction opposite to the predicted effect of environmental temperatures. The effect of lunar illumination was also evident within nights as animals maintained low T(b) when the moon was above the horizon. The pattern was accentuated in CORT-treated animals, suggesting they adopted an even further heightened risk-avoidance strategy that might impose reduced foraging and energy intake. Still, CORT-treatment did not affect body condition over the entire study, indicating kangaroo rats offset decreases in energy intake through energy savings associated with heterothermy. Environmental conditions receive the most attention in studies of thermoregulatory homeostasis, but we demonstrated here that biotic factors can be more important and should be considered in future studies. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-09-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8463709/ /pubmed/34561468 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96828-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence 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 licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Morales, Javier Omar Walker, Nikki Warne, Robin W. Boyles, Justin G. Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
title | Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
title_full | Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
title_fullStr | Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
title_full_unstemmed | Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
title_short | Heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
title_sort | heterothermy as a mechanism to offset energetic costs of environmental and homeostatic perturbations |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8463709/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34561468 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96828-0 |
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