Journal
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY
Volume 90, Issue 3, Pages 413-421Publisher
CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING, NRC RESEARCH PRESS
DOI: 10.1139/Z2012-008
Keywords
aerobic scope; BMR; energetics; heliox; PMR; eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus); summit metabolism; torpor
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Funding
- Fonds de recherche du Quebec - Nature et technologies (FQRNT) team
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- NSERC
- Canada Research Chair in Evolutionary Demography and Conservation
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Given the ubiquity and evolutionary importance of parasites, their effect on the energy budget of mammals remains surprisingly unclear. The eastern chipmunk (Landers striatus (L., 1758)) is a burrowing rodent that is commonly infected by cuterebrid bot fly (Cuterebra emasculator Fitch, 1856) larvae. We measured resting metabolic rate (RMR) and cold-induced Vo(2)-max (under heliox atmosphere) in 20 free-ranging individuals, of which 4 individuals were infected by one or two larva. We found that RMR was significantly higher in chipmunks infected by bot fly larvae (mean +/- SE = 0.88 +/- 0.05 W) than in uninfected individuals (0.74 +/- 0.02 W). In contrast, Vo(2)-max was significantly lower in chipmunks infected by bot fly larvae (4.96 +/- 0.70 W) than in uninfected individuals (6.37 +/- 0.16 W). Consequently, the aerobic scope (ratio of Vo(2)-max to RMR) was negatively correlated with the number of bot fly larvae (infected individuals = 5.74 +/- 1.03 W; noninfected individuals = 8.67 +/- 0.26 W). Finally, after accounting for the effects of body mass and bot fly parasitism on RMR and Vo(2)-max, there was no correlation between the two variables among individuals within our population. In addition to providing the first estimate of Vo(2)-max in T striatus, these results offer additional evidence that bot fly parasitism has significant impacts on the metabolic ecology of this host species.
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