title: Interspecific variation in thermoregulation among three sympatric bats inhabiting a hot, semi-arid environment.
abstract: Bats in hot roosts experience some of the most thermally challenging environments of any endotherms, but little is known about how heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity vary among species. We investigated thermoregulation in three sympatric species (Nycteris thebaica, Taphozous mauritianus and Sauromys petrophilus) in a hot, semi-arid environment by measuring body temperature (T(b)), metabolic rate and evaporative water loss (EWL) at air temperatures (T(a)) of 10-42 °C. S. petrophilus was highly heterothermic with no clear thermoneutral zone, and exhibited rapid increases in EWL at high T(a) to a maximum of 23.7 ± 7.4 mg g⁻¹ h⁻¹ at T(a) ≈ 42 °C, with a concomitant maximum T(b) of 43.7 ± 1.0 °C. T. mauritianus remained largely normothermic at T(a)s below thermoneutrality and increased EWL to 14.7 ± 1.3 mg g⁻¹ h⁻¹ at T(a) ≈ 42 °C, with a maximum T(b) of 42.9 ± 1.6 °C. In N. thebaica, EWL began increasing at lower T (a) than in either of the other species and reached a maximum of 18.6 ± 2.1 mg g⁻¹ h⁻¹ at T(a) = 39.4 °C, with comparatively high maximum T(b) values of 45.0 ± 0.9 °C. Under the conditions of our study, N. thebaica was considerably less heat tolerant than the other two species. Among seven species of bats for which data on T(b) as well as roost temperatures in comparison to outside T(a) are available, we found limited evidence for a correlation between overall heat tolerance and the extent to which roosts are buffered from high T(a).
authors: Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa.
authors: Dawn
authors: D
authors: Cory Toussaint
authors: Andrew E
authors: AE
authors: McKechnie
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001481:Basal Metabolism; D001831:Body Temperature; D001833:Body Temperature Regulation; D001835:Body Weight; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000378:metabolism; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000502:physiology*; D003681:Dehydration / Q000209:etiology / Q000662:veterinary; D003889:Desert Climate / Q000009:adverse effects; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D005260:Female; D006358:Hot Temperature; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D011897:Random Allocation; D013019:South Africa; D013045:Species Specificity; D014882:Water-Electrolyte Balance
chemical_list: D002245:Carbon Dioxide