The development of homeothermy in mink (Mustela vison)

Harjunpää, Sanna; Rouvinen‐Watt, Kirsti

doi:10.1016/j.cbpb.2003.10.015

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This is in good agreement with the age when animals were able to keep a constant body temperature when exposed to a cold environment (Rouvinen‐Watt and Harri, 2001), but animals in our study did not react as completely functionally homoeothermic until an age of almost 6 weeks if kept singly. This is considerably later than 22 days of age when Harjunpää and Rouvinen‐Watt (2004) considered that mink kits had developed homoeothermy, a reason for the discrepancy between the present study and that by Harjunpää and Rouvinen‐Watt (2004) may be that the latter study was based on short‐term measurements (10 min), although at a lower temperature (+4 °C), and that only body temperature was measured. Our data on HE on an hourly basis, furthermore, confirm our findings that young mink kits are practically poikilothermic by showing decreasing HE over the measurement period in groups of kits at L temperature until 29 days of age and in single kits at L temperature until 32 days of age.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 72%

“…Once the kits start to consume solid food and leave the nest, being functionally homoeothermic is crucial for survival. Limited existing data indicate that mink kits develop homoeothermy at an age of 25–35 days (Kostroñ and Kukla, 1978) and are able to maintain a stable body temperature by the age of 29 days (Rouvinen‐Watt and Harri, 2001), but Harjunpää and Rouvinen‐Watt (2004) considered mink kits homoeothermic already at 22 days of age. Knowledge of their HE, and the effect of different ambient temperatures on it, appears, however, to still be lacking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late development of homoeothermy in mink (Mustela vison) kits – a strategy for maximum survival rate*

Tauson¹,

Chwalibog²,

Tygesen³

2006

Animal Physiology Nutrition

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The objective of this study was to establish the age at which mink kits develop functional homoeothermy. The investigation was based on the hypothesis that in this species with very immature neonates, late development of homoeothermy may be an adaptation to economize with energy. Measurements of heat production (HE) by means of indirect calorimetry lasting 3 h were performed on neonatal kits and kits from 1 to 54 days of age. Both single kits and groups of 4-5 huddling kits were kept at 15 degrees C (L) or 30 degrees C (H) [from 35 days onwards at 25 degrees C (H)]. Animals were weighed before and after the experiments and evaporative water losses (EWL) were calculated. When exposed to L temperature, single kits responded with a very low HE until 29 days of age, and groups of kits until 14 days of age. It was not until they reached an age of approximately 6 weeks that single kits showed a clear thermoregulatory response to the L temperature by increased HE, whereas groups of kits showed increased HE from 29th day onwards. When kept at H temperature, HE was low initially, but all kits showed elevated HE at 8 days of age, and the metabolic rate was similar for single kits and kits huddling in groups. Evaporative water losses was higher among single than among groups of kits and slightly lower but more variable for animals at L than at H temperature. It was concluded that mink kits develop functional homoeothermy at an age of close to 6 weeks and that the failure of very young kits to thermoregulate is an adaptation mechanism in order to economise with their very limited body energy reserves.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Late development of homoeothermy in mink (Mustela vison) kits – a strategy for maximum survival rate*

Tauson¹,

Chwalibog²,

Tygesen³

2006

Animal Physiology Nutrition

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“…Performance during thermoregulation regulated temperature range, sometimes referred to as the 'preferred body temperature'. Endothermic mammals, in particular, regulate body temperature very narrowly, and departure from that narrow range will often have negative consequences, and may even result in death (Harjunpää and Rouvinen-Watt, 2004). Similarly, many terrestrial ectotherms have evolved behavioural patterns that result in narrow bodytemperature ranges compared with operative temperature fluctuations, at least when environmental heterogeneity is sufficient to allow thermoregulation (Hertz et al, 1993;Wills and Beaupre, 2000;Seebacher and Shine, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compensation for environmental change by complementary shifts of thermal sensitivity and thermoregulatory behaviour in an ectotherm

Glanville

Seebacher

2006

Journal of Experimental Biology

122

108

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SUMMARY Thermoregulating animals are thought to have evolved a preferred body temperature at which thermally sensitive performance is optimised. Even during thermoregulation, however, many animals experience pronounced variability in body temperature, and may regulate to different body temperatures depending on environmental conditions. Here we test the hypothesis that there is a trade-off between regulating to lower body temperatures in cooler conditions and locomotory and metabolic performance. Animals (estuarine crocodiles, Crocodylus porosus) acclimated to cold (N=8) conditions had significantly lower maximum and mean daily body temperatures after 33 days than warm-acclimated animals (N=9), despite performing characteristic thermoregulatory behaviours. Concomitant with behavioural changes, maximum sustained swimming speed (Ucrit) shifted to the respective mean body temperatures during acclimation (cold=20°C, warm=29°C), but there was no difference in the maxima between acclimation groups. Mitochondrial oxygen consumption changed significantly during acclimation, and maximum respiratory control ratios coincided with mean body temperatures in liver, muscle and heart tissues. There were significant changes in the activities of regulatory metabolic enzymes (lactate dehydrogenase, citrate synthase, cytochrome c oxidase) and these were tissue specific. The extraordinary shift in behaviour and locomotory and metabolic performance shows that within individuals, behaviour and physiology covary to maximise performance in different environments.

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“…Kits were counted, sexed and weighed on post‐natal days (PND) 1 and 21: a period when kits depend fully on mothers for food (Dunstone 1993; Mason 1994) and thermoregulation (Harjunpaa & Rouvinen‐Watt 2004). Weights were averaged for each litter, split by sex.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mink with Divergent Activity Levels have Divergent Reproductive Strategies

2012

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Stable individual differences in activity levels within populations have been linked to differences in reproductive rate or parental care in several species, including American mink (Neovison vison). Fur‐farmed mink are good models for studying such effects because they yield large sample sizes and readily allow investigations into maternal behaviour, reproductive success, offspring performance and the relationships between these factors. On farms, very inactive individuals generally have smaller litters, and this held true in our study populations. We tested two competing hypotheses to explain this: (1) inactive individuals are failing to cope with a challenging environment and experiencing chronic stress and/or depression‐like ‘apathy’; this predicts female‐skewed litters, poorer maternal care, higher infant mortality and poorer infant growth and (2) inactive individuals do not have reduced fitness but instead employ an alternative adaptive reproductive strategy, trading off offspring quantity for quality; this predicts enhanced maternal care, reduced infant mortality and enhanced infant growth. Inactive females’ kits, especially their sons, grew faster than active females’, even after statistically controlling for litter size; and by 21 d, inactive and active dams’ litters no longer differed in total biomass, despite the former’s smaller litter sizes. In kit retrieval tests, inactive females were faster than active dams to reach their sons (as well as more likely to contact their sons than their daughters: a bias towards male kits not evident in the active dams). Furthermore, kit growth rates and dam latencies to touch them co‐varied, suggesting the existence of consistent differences in maternal style across inactive and active dams. Hypothesis 2 was thus supported: inactive females favour offspring quality over quantity, investing more resources in fewer kits, particularly males. This potentially boosts their sons’ adult fitness. More broadly for laboratory‐based studies, possible ‘captivity effects’ on the fitness correlates of activity and other personality traits are discussed.

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The development of homeothermy in mink (Mustela vison)

Cited by 22 publications

References 20 publications

Late development of homoeothermy in mink (Mustela vison) kits – a strategy for maximum survival rate*

Late development of homoeothermy in mink (Mustela vison) kits – a strategy for maximum survival rate*

Compensation for environmental change by complementary shifts of thermal sensitivity and thermoregulatory behaviour in an ectotherm

Mink with Divergent Activity Levels have Divergent Reproductive Strategies

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