Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal
Although energetics is fundamental to animal ecology, traditional methods of determining metabolic rate are neither direct nor instantaneous. Recently, continuous blood oxygen (O2) measurements were used to assess energy expenditure in diving elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), demonstrating t...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3871621 2023-05-15T16:05:11+02:00 Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal Meir, Jessica U. Robinson, Patrick W. Vilchis, L. Ignacio Kooyman, Gerald L. Costa, Daniel P. Ponganis, Paul J. 2013-12-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871621 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083248 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083248 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2013 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083248 2013-12-29T01:41:43Z Although energetics is fundamental to animal ecology, traditional methods of determining metabolic rate are neither direct nor instantaneous. Recently, continuous blood oxygen (O2) measurements were used to assess energy expenditure in diving elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), demonstrating that an exceptional hypoxemic tolerance and exquisite management of blood O2 stores underlie the extraordinary diving capability of this consummate diver. As the detailed relationship of energy expenditure and dive behavior remains unknown, we integrated behavior, ecology, and physiology to characterize the costs of different types of dives of elephant seals. Elephant seal dive profiles were analyzed and O2 utilization was classified according to dive type (overall function of dive: transit, foraging, food processing/rest). This is the first account linking behavior at this level with in vivo blood O2 measurements in an animal freely diving at sea, allowing us to assess patterns of O2 utilization and energy expenditure between various behaviors and activities in an animal in the wild. In routine dives of elephant seals, the blood O2 store was significantly depleted to a similar range irrespective of dive function, suggesting that all dive types have equal costs in terms of blood O2 depletion. Here, we present the first physiological evidence that all dive types have similarly high blood O2 demands, supporting an energy balance strategy achieved by devoting one major task to a given dive, thereby separating dive functions into distinct dive types. This strategy may optimize O2 store utilization and recovery, consequently maximizing time underwater and allowing these animals to take full advantage of their underwater resources. This approach may be important to optimizing energy expenditure throughout a dive bout or at-sea foraging trip and is well suited to the lifestyle of an elephant seal, which spends > 90% of its time at sea submerged making diving its most “natural” state. Text Elephant Seal Elephant Seals PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 8 12 e83248 |
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Research Article Meir, Jessica U. Robinson, Patrick W. Vilchis, L. Ignacio Kooyman, Gerald L. Costa, Daniel P. Ponganis, Paul J. Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal |
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Although energetics is fundamental to animal ecology, traditional methods of determining metabolic rate are neither direct nor instantaneous. Recently, continuous blood oxygen (O2) measurements were used to assess energy expenditure in diving elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), demonstrating that an exceptional hypoxemic tolerance and exquisite management of blood O2 stores underlie the extraordinary diving capability of this consummate diver. As the detailed relationship of energy expenditure and dive behavior remains unknown, we integrated behavior, ecology, and physiology to characterize the costs of different types of dives of elephant seals. Elephant seal dive profiles were analyzed and O2 utilization was classified according to dive type (overall function of dive: transit, foraging, food processing/rest). This is the first account linking behavior at this level with in vivo blood O2 measurements in an animal freely diving at sea, allowing us to assess patterns of O2 utilization and energy expenditure between various behaviors and activities in an animal in the wild. In routine dives of elephant seals, the blood O2 store was significantly depleted to a similar range irrespective of dive function, suggesting that all dive types have equal costs in terms of blood O2 depletion. Here, we present the first physiological evidence that all dive types have similarly high blood O2 demands, supporting an energy balance strategy achieved by devoting one major task to a given dive, thereby separating dive functions into distinct dive types. This strategy may optimize O2 store utilization and recovery, consequently maximizing time underwater and allowing these animals to take full advantage of their underwater resources. This approach may be important to optimizing energy expenditure throughout a dive bout or at-sea foraging trip and is well suited to the lifestyle of an elephant seal, which spends > 90% of its time at sea submerged making diving its most “natural” state. |
format |
Text |
author |
Meir, Jessica U. Robinson, Patrick W. Vilchis, L. Ignacio Kooyman, Gerald L. Costa, Daniel P. Ponganis, Paul J. |
author_facet |
Meir, Jessica U. Robinson, Patrick W. Vilchis, L. Ignacio Kooyman, Gerald L. Costa, Daniel P. Ponganis, Paul J. |
author_sort |
Meir, Jessica U. |
title |
Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal |
title_short |
Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal |
title_full |
Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal |
title_fullStr |
Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal |
title_full_unstemmed |
Blood Oxygen Depletion Is Independent of Dive Function in a Deep Diving Vertebrate, the Northern Elephant Seal |
title_sort |
blood oxygen depletion is independent of dive function in a deep diving vertebrate, the northern elephant seal |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871621 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083248 |
genre |
Elephant Seal Elephant Seals |
genre_facet |
Elephant Seal Elephant Seals |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3871621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083248 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083248 |
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PLoS ONE |
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8 |
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12 |
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e83248 |
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