Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/62758
Title: Rare and Opportunistic Use of Torpor in Mammals—An Echo from the Past?
Contributor(s): Nowack, Julia  (author); Stawski, Clare  (author); Geiser, Fritz  (author)orcid ; Levesque, Danielle L (author)
Publication Date: 2023-06-16
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1093/icb/icad067
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/62758
Abstract: 

Torpor was traditionally seen as a winter survival mechanism employed by animals living in cold and highly seasonal habitats. Although we now know that torpor is also used by tropical and subtropical species, and in response to a variety of triggers, torpor is still largely viewed as a highly controlled, seasonal mechanism shown by Northern hemisphere species. To scrutinize this view, we report data from a macroanalysis in which we characterized the type and seasonality of torpor use from mammal species currently known to use torpor. Our findings suggest that predictable, seasonal torpor patterns reported for Northern temperate and polar species are highly derived forms of torpor expression, whereas the more opportunistic and variable forms of torpor that we see in tropical and subtropical species are likely closer to the patterns expressed by ancestral mammals. Our data emphasize that the torpor patterns observed in the tropics and subtropics should be considered the norm and not the exception.

Publication Type: Conference Publication
Conference Details: Annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Austin, United States of America, 3rd - 7th January, 2023
Source of Publication: Integrative And Comparative Biology, 63(5), p. 1049-1059
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Place of Publication: United Kingdom
ISSN: 1557-7023
1540-7063
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 3109 Zoology
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: E1 Refereed Scholarly Conference Publication
Appears in Collections:Conference Publication
School of Environmental and Rural Science

Files in This Item:
2 files
File Description SizeFormat 
openpublished/RareGeiser2023ConferencePaper.pdfPublished version1.47 MBAdobe PDF
Download Adobe
View/Open
Show full item record
Google Media

Google ScholarTM

Check

Altmetric


This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons