It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins.
Birds may allocate a significant part of time to comfort behavior (e.g., preening, stretching, shaking, etc.) in order to eliminate parasites, maintain plumage integrity, and possibly reduce muscular ankylosis. Understanding the adaptive value of comfort behavior would benefit from knowledge on the...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:783f215c29f249b191ebbba10502aef3 2023-05-15T17:03:55+02:00 It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. Vincent A Viblanc Adeline Mathien Claire Saraux Vanessa M Viera René Groscolas 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021110 https://doaj.org/article/783f215c29f249b191ebbba10502aef3 EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3139590?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021110 https://doaj.org/article/783f215c29f249b191ebbba10502aef3 PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 7, p e21110 (2011) Medicine R Science Q article 2011 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021110 2022-12-31T02:25:20Z Birds may allocate a significant part of time to comfort behavior (e.g., preening, stretching, shaking, etc.) in order to eliminate parasites, maintain plumage integrity, and possibly reduce muscular ankylosis. Understanding the adaptive value of comfort behavior would benefit from knowledge on the energy costs animals are willing to pay to maintain it, particularly under situations of energy constraints, e.g., during fasting. We determined time and energy devoted to comfort activities in freely breeding king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), seabirds known to fast for up to one month during incubation shifts ashore.A time budget was estimated from focal and scan sampling field observations and the energy cost of comfort activities was calculated from the associated increase in heart rate (HR) during comfort episodes, using previously determined equations relating HR to energy expenditure. We show that incubating birds spent 22% of their daily time budget in comfort behavior (with no differences between day and night) mainly devoted to preening (73%) and head/body shaking (16%). During comfort behavior, energy expenditure averaged 1.24 times resting metabolic rate (RMR) and the corresponding energy cost (i.e., energy expended in excess to RMR) was 58 kJ/hr. Energy expenditure varied greatly among various types of comfort behavior, ranging from 1.03 (yawning) to 1.78 (stretching) times RMR. Comfort behavior contributed 8.8-9.3% to total daily energy expenditure and 69.4-73.5% to energy expended daily for activity. About half of this energy was expended caring for plumage.This study is the first to estimate the contribution of comfort behavior to overall energy budget in a free-living animal. It shows that although breeding on a tight energy budget, king penguins devote a substantial amount of time and energy to comfort behavior. Such findings underline the importance of comfort behavior for the fitness of colonial seabirds. Article in Journal/Newspaper King Penguins Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PLoS ONE 6 7 e21110 |
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topic |
Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Vincent A Viblanc Adeline Mathien Claire Saraux Vanessa M Viera René Groscolas It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
Birds may allocate a significant part of time to comfort behavior (e.g., preening, stretching, shaking, etc.) in order to eliminate parasites, maintain plumage integrity, and possibly reduce muscular ankylosis. Understanding the adaptive value of comfort behavior would benefit from knowledge on the energy costs animals are willing to pay to maintain it, particularly under situations of energy constraints, e.g., during fasting. We determined time and energy devoted to comfort activities in freely breeding king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), seabirds known to fast for up to one month during incubation shifts ashore.A time budget was estimated from focal and scan sampling field observations and the energy cost of comfort activities was calculated from the associated increase in heart rate (HR) during comfort episodes, using previously determined equations relating HR to energy expenditure. We show that incubating birds spent 22% of their daily time budget in comfort behavior (with no differences between day and night) mainly devoted to preening (73%) and head/body shaking (16%). During comfort behavior, energy expenditure averaged 1.24 times resting metabolic rate (RMR) and the corresponding energy cost (i.e., energy expended in excess to RMR) was 58 kJ/hr. Energy expenditure varied greatly among various types of comfort behavior, ranging from 1.03 (yawning) to 1.78 (stretching) times RMR. Comfort behavior contributed 8.8-9.3% to total daily energy expenditure and 69.4-73.5% to energy expended daily for activity. About half of this energy was expended caring for plumage.This study is the first to estimate the contribution of comfort behavior to overall energy budget in a free-living animal. It shows that although breeding on a tight energy budget, king penguins devote a substantial amount of time and energy to comfort behavior. Such findings underline the importance of comfort behavior for the fitness of colonial seabirds. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Vincent A Viblanc Adeline Mathien Claire Saraux Vanessa M Viera René Groscolas |
author_facet |
Vincent A Viblanc Adeline Mathien Claire Saraux Vanessa M Viera René Groscolas |
author_sort |
Vincent A Viblanc |
title |
It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
title_short |
It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
title_full |
It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
title_fullStr |
It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
title_full_unstemmed |
It costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
title_sort |
it costs to be clean and fit: energetics of comfort behavior in breeding-fasting penguins. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021110 https://doaj.org/article/783f215c29f249b191ebbba10502aef3 |
genre |
King Penguins |
genre_facet |
King Penguins |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 7, p e21110 (2011) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3139590?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021110 https://doaj.org/article/783f215c29f249b191ebbba10502aef3 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021110 |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
6 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
e21110 |
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