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Body temperature stability in the whale shark, the world's largest fish
Ist Teil von
Journal of experimental biology, 2020-06, Vol.223 (Pt 11)
Ort / Verlag
England
Erscheinungsjahr
2020
Quelle
EZB Electronic Journals Library
Beschreibungen/Notizen
It is generally assumed that the body temperature of large animals is less likely to change because of their large body size, resulting in a high thermal inertia and a smaller surface area to volume ratio. The goal of this study was to investigate the stability of body temperature in large fish using data from field experiments. We measured the muscle temperatures of free-ranging whale sharks (
), the largest extant fish globally, and investigated their ectothermic physiology and the stability of their body temperature. The muscle temperature changed substantially more slowly than the water temperature fluctuations associated with vertical movements, and the whole-body heat-transfer coefficients (HTCs) of whale sharks estimated using heat-budget models were lower than those of any other fish species measured to date. The heat-budget models also showed that internal heat production does not contribute to changes in muscle temperature. A comparative analysis showed that the HTC at cooling in various fish species including both ectothermic and endothermic species ranging from 10
to 10
kg was proportional to body mass
This allometry was present regardless of whether the fish were ectothermic or endothermic, and was an extension of the relationship observed in previous studies on small fish. Thus, large fish have the advantage of body temperature stability while moving in environments with large temperature variations. Our results suggest that the large body size of whale sharks aids in preventing a decrease in body temperature during deep excursions to more than 1000 m depths without high metabolic costs of producing heat.
Sprache
Englisch
Identifikatoren
eISSN: 1477-9145
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.210286
Titel-ID: cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_2398631343
Format
–
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