Browsing by Author "Bustamante, DM"

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    Dynamic digestive responses to increased energy demands in the leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis darwini)
    (2005) Naya, DE; Bacigalupe, LD; Bustamante, DM; Bozinovic, F
    A major area of interest in comparative physiology has been to understand how animals cope with changing environmental demands in time and space. The digestive system has been identified as one of the more sensitive systems to changes in environmental conditions. However, most research on this topic has evaluated these effects during peak energetic demands, which do not allow for evaluation of the dynamics of the digestive response along a more natural continuous gradient of environmental conditions. We examined phenotypic flexibility in digestive responses of the leaf-eared mouse Phyllotis darwini to increments in total energy demands ( via sequential exposure to 26, 12 and 0 degreesC). Additionally, we evaluated the effect of a moderate energy demand ( 12 degreesC) over three different time periods ( 7, 17 and 27 days) on digestive traits. Moderate increases in energy demand were associated with changes in the distribution of digesta in the gut, whereas higher increases in energy demand involved increases in the tissue mass of digestive organs. Time-course analysis showed that at 12 degreesC practically all digestive variables reached stable values within 7 days, which is in agreement with empirical data and theoretical deductions from cellular turnover rates. We conclude that although the input of energy and nutrients into the digestive tract is typically periodic, many aspects of digestive physiology are likely to be flexible in response to environmental variability over both short-term ( daily) and long-term ( seasonal) time scales.
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    Quantitative genetics of bioenergetics and growth-related traits in the wild mammal, Phyllotis darwini
    (2005) Nespolo, RF; Bustamante, DM; Bacigalupe, LD; Bozinovic, F
    We studied the potential for response to selection in typical physiological-thermoregulatory traits of mammals such as maximum metabolic rate (MMR), nonshivering thermogenesis (NST) and basal metabolic rate (BMR) on cold-acclimated animals. We used an animal model approach to estimate both narrow-sense heritabilities (h(2)) and genetic correlations between physiological and growth-related traits. Univariate analyses showed that MMR presented high, significant heritability (h(2) = 0.69 - 0.35, asymptotic standard error), suggesting the potential for microevolution in this variable. However, NST and BMR presented low, nonsignificant h2, and NST showed large maternal/common environmental/nonadditive effects (c(2) = 0.34 +/- 0.17). Heritabilities were large and significant (h(2) > 0.5) for all growth-related traits (birth mass, growth rate, weaning mass). The only significant genetic correlations we found between a physiological trait and a growth-related trait was between NST and birth mass (r = -0.74; P < 0.05). Overall, these results suggest that additive genetic variance is present in several bioenergetic traits, and that genetic correlations could be present between those different kinds of traits.