Not hibernation ecology, but size matters--arousal metabolism of European bats in caves
| Autoři | |
|---|---|
| Rok publikování | 2025 |
| Druh | Článek v odborném periodiku |
| Časopis / Zdroj | CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY |
| Citace | |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.1139/cjz-2024-0154 |
| Klíčová slova | respirometry; arousal; metabolic rate; hibernation; bats; Chiroptera |
| Popis | Small endotherms have high rates of heat loss and, at low temperatures, require large amounts of energy to maintain stable body temperatures via endogenous heat production. To maintain energy balance during winter, many temperate-zone bats rely on hibernation. Although bats spend most of their time during hibernation at low body temperatures, most of their energy budget is allocated to costly arousals. We compared temporal and metabolic parameters of rewarming among four hibernating European bat species to test the hypothesis that hibernation ecology and body size influences the energetics of rewarming. We predicted that smaller species would have greater relative energy expenditure during arousals because of their higher rates of heat loss. Consistent with our prediction, two of the three parameters we measured (i.e., maximum rate of mass-specific oxygen consumption (VO2) during arousal and area under the mass-specific VO2 curve) were higher in the smaller species, although there was no difference in the time of peak mass-specific VO2. The results suggest that the duration of rewarming does not differ between the four studied species, but relative to their body size, smaller bats use more energy during arousal than larger bats, highlighting the importance of body size for energy demands during hibernation. |
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