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Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot
Visceral organs and tissues of 89 free-living alpine marmots (Marmota marmota) shot during a population control program in Switzerland, were collected. Between emergence from hibernation in April to July, the gastrointestinal tract (stomach to colon) gained 51% of mass and the liver mass increased b...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9852207/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36335482 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00360-022-01466-1 |
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author | Ruf, Thomas Michel, M. Frey-Roos, F. Flatz, S. Tataruch, F. |
author_facet | Ruf, Thomas Michel, M. Frey-Roos, F. Flatz, S. Tataruch, F. |
author_sort | Ruf, Thomas |
collection | PubMed |
description | Visceral organs and tissues of 89 free-living alpine marmots (Marmota marmota) shot during a population control program in Switzerland, were collected. Between emergence from hibernation in April to July, the gastrointestinal tract (stomach to colon) gained 51% of mass and the liver mass increased by 24%. At the same time, the basal metabolic rate (BMR), determined with a portable oxygen analyzer, increased by 18%. The organ masses of the digestive system (stomach, small intestine, caecum, large intestine) were all significantly correlated with BMR. Interestingly, the mass of abdominal white adipose tissue (WAT) and of the remaining carcass (mainly skin and bones) were also significantly correlated with BMR. These results indicate that the gastrointestinal tract and organs involved in digestive function are metabolically expensive. They also show that it is costly to maintain even tissues with low metabolic rate such as WAT, especially if they are large. Heart and kidneys and especially brain and lungs did not explain a large proportion of the variance in BMR. Marmots increased the uptake of fat prior to hibernation, both by selective feeding and enhanced gastrointestinal capacity. Large fat reserves enable marmots to hibernate without food intake and to reproduce in spring, but at the cost of an elevated BMR. We predict that climate changes that disturb energy accumulation in summer, increase energy expenditure in winter, or delay the emergence from hibernation in spring, such as the occurrence of storms with increasing frequency, will increase mortality in alpine marmots. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9852207 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98522072023-01-21 Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot Ruf, Thomas Michel, M. Frey-Roos, F. Flatz, S. Tataruch, F. J Comp Physiol B Original Paper Visceral organs and tissues of 89 free-living alpine marmots (Marmota marmota) shot during a population control program in Switzerland, were collected. Between emergence from hibernation in April to July, the gastrointestinal tract (stomach to colon) gained 51% of mass and the liver mass increased by 24%. At the same time, the basal metabolic rate (BMR), determined with a portable oxygen analyzer, increased by 18%. The organ masses of the digestive system (stomach, small intestine, caecum, large intestine) were all significantly correlated with BMR. Interestingly, the mass of abdominal white adipose tissue (WAT) and of the remaining carcass (mainly skin and bones) were also significantly correlated with BMR. These results indicate that the gastrointestinal tract and organs involved in digestive function are metabolically expensive. They also show that it is costly to maintain even tissues with low metabolic rate such as WAT, especially if they are large. Heart and kidneys and especially brain and lungs did not explain a large proportion of the variance in BMR. Marmots increased the uptake of fat prior to hibernation, both by selective feeding and enhanced gastrointestinal capacity. Large fat reserves enable marmots to hibernate without food intake and to reproduce in spring, but at the cost of an elevated BMR. We predict that climate changes that disturb energy accumulation in summer, increase energy expenditure in winter, or delay the emergence from hibernation in spring, such as the occurrence of storms with increasing frequency, will increase mortality in alpine marmots. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022-11-06 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9852207/ /pubmed/36335482 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00360-022-01466-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis 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 | Original Paper Ruf, Thomas Michel, M. Frey-Roos, F. Flatz, S. Tataruch, F. Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
title | Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
title_full | Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
title_fullStr | Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
title_full_unstemmed | Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
title_short | Energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
title_sort | energy expenditure and body composition in a hibernator, the alpine marmot |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9852207/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36335482 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00360-022-01466-1 |
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