Flexible energy-saving strategies in female temperate-zone bats ...

• Main Authors: Keicher, Lara, Shipley, J. Ryan, Komar, Ewa, Ruczyński, Ireneusz, Schaeffer, Paul J., Dechmann, Dina K. N.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2022
• Subjects: Heart rate; Metabolism; Nyctalus noctula; Reproduction; FOS: Medical biotechnology; Thermoregulation; Torpor; Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13535732; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13535732

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Torpor is characterized by an extreme reduction in metabolism and a common energy-saving strategy of heterothermic animals. Torpor is often associated with cold temperatures, but in the last decades, more diverse and flexible forms of torpor have been described. For example, tropical bat species maintain a low metabolism and heart rate at high ambient and body temperatures. We investigated whether bats (Nyctalus noctula) from the cooler temperate European regions also show this form of torpor with metabolic inhibition at high body temperatures, and whether this would be as pronounced in reproductive as in non-reproductive bats. We simultaneously measured metabolic rate, heart rate, and skin temperature in non-reproductive and pregnant females at a range of ambient temperatures. We found that they can decouple metabolic rate and heart rate from body temperature: they maintained an extremely low metabolism and heart rate when exposed to ambient temperatures ...