TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaporative water loss in Kuhl's pipistrelles declines along an environmental gradient, from mesic to hyperarid
AU - Gearhart, Cassandra
AU - Adams, Amanda M.
AU - Pinshow, Berry
AU - Korine, Carmi
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by grant number 2008469 from the United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation to Carmi Korine and Joseph B. Williams. We thank Miri Ben-Hamo for her invaluable help in the experiments and Justin. B. Boyles for constructive criticism on a draft of this MS. This research was done under permit 34615 to Carmi Korine from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and under permit IL-71-12-2010 from the Ben-Gurion University Committee for the Ethical care and use of Animals in Experiments. This is paper number 1045 of the Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology.
Funding Information:
This research was funded by grant number 2008469 from the United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation to Carmi Korine and Joseph B. Williams. We thank Miri Ben-Hamo for her invaluable help in the experiments and Justin. B. Boyles for constructive criticism on a draft of this MS. This research was done under permit 34615 to Carmi Korine from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and under permit IL-71-12-2010 from the Ben-Gurion University Committee for the Ethical care and use of Animals in Experiments. This is paper number 1045 of the Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2020/2/1
Y1 - 2020/2/1
N2 - Intraspecific variation in animal energy and water balances may play an important role in local adaptation of populations to specific habitats such as deserts. We examined Kuhl's pipistrelle (Pipistrellus kuhlii), a common bat in Israel that ranges in distribution from mesic Mediterranean to hyperarid desert habitats, for intraspecific differences in metabolic rate (MR) and evaporative water loss (EWL) among populations along a climatic gradient. We tested the prediction that EWL, especially at high ambient temperatures is lower in Kuhl's pipistrelles from desert habitats than from mesic habitats. We measured MR and total evaporative water loss (TEWL) at four ambient temperatures (10 °C, 20 °C, 30 °C and 35 °C) in three groups of bats using open-flow respirometry. We fitted the bats with a mask to separate cutaneous water loss (CWL) from respiratory water loss (RWL) at 35 °C. At 35 °C, mean TEWL in the southernmost group, from the hyperarid location, was significantly lower than in the other two groups, with no apparent difference in mean MR. The source of difference TEWL was that the southern group had significantly lower CWL than the other two groups; RWL did not differ among them. This suggests that there are mechanisms that reduce EWL from the skin of the bats; a likely candidate is modification of the lipids in the outer layer of the dermis that make the skin possibly less permeable to water as has been described in birds and a few other species of bat.
AB - Intraspecific variation in animal energy and water balances may play an important role in local adaptation of populations to specific habitats such as deserts. We examined Kuhl's pipistrelle (Pipistrellus kuhlii), a common bat in Israel that ranges in distribution from mesic Mediterranean to hyperarid desert habitats, for intraspecific differences in metabolic rate (MR) and evaporative water loss (EWL) among populations along a climatic gradient. We tested the prediction that EWL, especially at high ambient temperatures is lower in Kuhl's pipistrelles from desert habitats than from mesic habitats. We measured MR and total evaporative water loss (TEWL) at four ambient temperatures (10 °C, 20 °C, 30 °C and 35 °C) in three groups of bats using open-flow respirometry. We fitted the bats with a mask to separate cutaneous water loss (CWL) from respiratory water loss (RWL) at 35 °C. At 35 °C, mean TEWL in the southernmost group, from the hyperarid location, was significantly lower than in the other two groups, with no apparent difference in mean MR. The source of difference TEWL was that the southern group had significantly lower CWL than the other two groups; RWL did not differ among them. This suggests that there are mechanisms that reduce EWL from the skin of the bats; a likely candidate is modification of the lipids in the outer layer of the dermis that make the skin possibly less permeable to water as has been described in birds and a few other species of bat.
KW - Bats
KW - Climate gradient
KW - Cutaneous water loss
KW - Desert
KW - Evaporative water loss
KW - Populations
KW - Respiratory water loss
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074288126&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cbpa.2019.110587
DO - 10.1016/j.cbpa.2019.110587
M3 - Article
C2 - 31655113
AN - SCOPUS:85074288126
SN - 1095-6433
VL - 240
JO - Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology - A Molecular and Integrative Physiology
JF - Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology - A Molecular and Integrative Physiology
M1 - 110587
ER -