Metabolic and behavioral responses of American kestrels to food deprivation
Citation
Wesley W Weathers, and Carol J Shapiro, Metabolic and behavioral responses of American kestrels to food deprivation: .
Summary
1. 1. The effect of short-term (79 hr) food deprivation at 27°C on body mass, locomotor activity, body temperature (Tb), and resting oxygen consumption was determined in eleven American kestrels (Falco sparverius). 2. 2. The change in body mass during resting followed the relation, % mass remaining = 99 e0.07(days fasting). There was no significant difference in the rate of relative mass loss between males and females. 3. 3. Locomotor activity, measured as perch hopping, was highly variable in both control and fasted birds and showed no correlation with stage of the fast, basal metabolic rate (BMR), or rate of mass loss during food deprivation. 4. 4. Body temperatures of fasted birds declined continuously by 0.2–0.4°C per day from [...]
Summary
1. 1. The effect of short-term (79 hr) food deprivation at 27°C on body mass, locomotor activity, body temperature (Tb), and resting oxygen consumption was determined in eleven American kestrels (Falco sparverius). 2. 2. The change in body mass during resting followed the relation, % mass remaining = 99 e0.07(days fasting). There was no significant difference in the rate of relative mass loss between males and females. 3. 3. Locomotor activity, measured as perch hopping, was highly variable in both control and fasted birds and showed no correlation with stage of the fast, basal metabolic rate (BMR), or rate of mass loss during food deprivation. 4. 4. Body temperatures of fasted birds declined continuously by 0.2–0.4°C per day from 39.3 to 38.3°C. 5. 5. Both males and females responded to food deprivation with a decrease in metabolism. By the third night of fasting, BMR had declined 23.4% from 0.845 W (bird day)−1 to 0.647 W (bird day)−1. The observed reduction in BMR is 2.4 times that expected from a 1°C decline in Tb (assuming Q10 = 2.5) indicating active suppression of metabolism.
Published in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, volume 68, issue 1, on pages 3 - 3, in 1981.