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Journal Articles Oecologia Year : 2015

When to initiate torpor use? Food availability times the transition to winter phenotype in a tropical heterotherm

Abstract

Timing of winter phenotype expression determines individual chances of survival until next reproductive season. Environmental cues triggering this seasonal phenotypic transition have been rarely investigated, although they play a central role in the compensation of climatic fluctuations via plastic phenotypic adjustments. Initiation of winter daily torpor use – a widespread energy saving phenotype – could be primarily timed according to anticipatory seasonal cues (anticipatory cues hypothesis), or flexibly fine-tuned according to actual energy availability (food shortage hypothesis). We conducted a food supplementation experiment on wild heterothermic primates (grey mouse lemurs, Microcebus murinus), at the transition to the food-limited dry season, i.e. the austral winter. As expected under the food shortage hypothesis, food supplemented individuals postponed the seasonal transition to normal torpor use by 1-2 month(s), spent 4 time less torpid, and exhibited minimal skin temperature 6°C higher than control animals. This study provides the first in situ experimental evidence that food availability, rather than abiotic cues, times the launching of torpor use. Fine-tuning of the timing of seasonal phenotypic transitions according to actual food shortage should provide heterotherms with a flexible adaptive mechanism to survive unexpected environmental fluctuations.
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Dates and versions

hal-03257288 , version 1 (10-06-2021)

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Pauline Vuarin, Melanie Dammhahn, Peter Kappeler, Pierre-Yves Henry. When to initiate torpor use? Food availability times the transition to winter phenotype in a tropical heterotherm. Oecologia, 2015, 179 (1), pp.43-53. ⟨10.1007/s00442-015-3328-0⟩. ⟨hal-03257288⟩

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