barnacle geese achieve significant energetic savings by changing posture黑雁鹅达到节省能量通过改变姿势.pdfVIP

Barnacle Geese Achieve Significant Energetic Savings by Changing Posture Peter G. Tickle, Robert L. Nudds, Jonathan R. Codd* Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Abstract Here we report the resting metabolic rate in barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) and provide evidence for the significant energetic effect of posture. Under laboratory conditions flow-through respirometry together with synchronous recording of behaviour enabled a calculation of how metabolic rate varies with posture. Our principal finding is that standing bipedally incurs a 25% increase in metabolic rate compared to birds sitting on the ground. In addition to the expected decrease in energy consumption of hindlimb postural muscles when sitting, we hypothesise that a change in breathing mechanics represents one potential mechanism for at least part of the observed difference in energetic cost. Due to the significant effect of posture, future studies of resting metabolic rates need to take into account and/or report differences in posture. Citation: Tickle PG, Nudds RL, Codd JR (2012) Barnacle Geese Achieve Significant Energetic Savings by Changing Posture. PLoS ONE 7(10): e46950. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0046950 Editor: Lewis George Halsey, University of Roehampton, United Kingdom Received June 26, 2012; Accepted September 10, 2012; Published October 10, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Tickle et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This research was funded through the BBRSC Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (G/01138/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or pr