Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals
Southern elephant seals (SES) experience a ‘catastrophic molt’, a costly event characterized by the renewal of both hair and epidermis that requires high peripheral vascular circulation. Molting animals are therefore constrained by high metabolic heat loss and are thought to fast and remain on land....
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:10774426 2024-02-11T10:03:31+01:00 Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals Charlanne, Laura M. Chaise, Laureline Sornette, Damien Piot, Erwan McCafferty, Dominic J. Ancel, André Gilbert, Caroline 2024-01-08 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10774426/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38191678 https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05720-2 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10774426/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38191678 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05720-2 © The Author(s) 2024 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 license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license 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 license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . Commun Biol Article Text 2024 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05720-2 2024-01-14T01:57:23Z Southern elephant seals (SES) experience a ‘catastrophic molt’, a costly event characterized by the renewal of both hair and epidermis that requires high peripheral vascular circulation. Molting animals are therefore constrained by high metabolic heat loss and are thought to fast and remain on land. To examine the ability of individuals to balance the energetic constraints of molting on land we investigate the stomach temperature and movement patterns of molting female SES. We find that 79% of females swam and 61% ingested water or prey items, despite the cost of cold-water exposure while molting. This behavior was related to periods of warm and low wind conditions, and females that dived and ingested more often, lost less body mass. We conclude that the paradigm of fasting during the molt in this species, and the fitness consequences of this behavior should be reconsidered, especially in the context of a changing climate. Text Elephant Seals Southern Elephant Seals PubMed Central (PMC) Communications Biology 7 1 |
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Article Charlanne, Laura M. Chaise, Laureline Sornette, Damien Piot, Erwan McCafferty, Dominic J. Ancel, André Gilbert, Caroline Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
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Article |
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Southern elephant seals (SES) experience a ‘catastrophic molt’, a costly event characterized by the renewal of both hair and epidermis that requires high peripheral vascular circulation. Molting animals are therefore constrained by high metabolic heat loss and are thought to fast and remain on land. To examine the ability of individuals to balance the energetic constraints of molting on land we investigate the stomach temperature and movement patterns of molting female SES. We find that 79% of females swam and 61% ingested water or prey items, despite the cost of cold-water exposure while molting. This behavior was related to periods of warm and low wind conditions, and females that dived and ingested more often, lost less body mass. We conclude that the paradigm of fasting during the molt in this species, and the fitness consequences of this behavior should be reconsidered, especially in the context of a changing climate. |
format |
Text |
author |
Charlanne, Laura M. Chaise, Laureline Sornette, Damien Piot, Erwan McCafferty, Dominic J. Ancel, André Gilbert, Caroline |
author_facet |
Charlanne, Laura M. Chaise, Laureline Sornette, Damien Piot, Erwan McCafferty, Dominic J. Ancel, André Gilbert, Caroline |
author_sort |
Charlanne, Laura M. |
title |
Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
title_short |
Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
title_full |
Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
title_fullStr |
Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
title_full_unstemmed |
Breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
title_sort |
breaking the fast: first report of dives and ingestion events in molting southern elephant seals |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10774426/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38191678 https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05720-2 |
genre |
Elephant Seals Southern Elephant Seals |
genre_facet |
Elephant Seals Southern Elephant Seals |
op_source |
Commun Biol |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10774426/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38191678 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05720-2 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2024 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 license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license 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 license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05720-2 |
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Communications Biology |
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