![]() ![]() Too much nitrogen can be toxic, so the body normally eliminates the excess through urine in a compound called urea. Muscle breakdown from inactivity or starvation releases compounds made of nitrogen - a crucial element found in muscle building blocks called amino acids. “After long bed rest, humans are just not jumping up and down and climbing mountains,” says study coauthor Hannah Carey, a hibernation physiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Understanding how squirrels keep their muscle over the winter could offer a small clue to figuring out how to stave off muscle loss for people who are malnourished or have muscle-wasting diseases, the scientists say. The microorganisms appear to help the squirrels recycle nutrients to keep the rodents’ muscles taut, researchers report in the Jan. (This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.Gut microbes give some squirrels a helping hand to stay strong during hibernation. ''Our paper shows the importance of long-term datasets in understanding how ecosystems are responding to climate change,'' said Williams. While hibernation requires less energy, which could help overwinter survival, ground squirrel numbers also depend on how predators respond to climate shifts, hugely influencing their future populations. ![]() ![]() The downside is that if the males also do not shift hibernation patterns, there eventually could be a mismatch in available ''date nights'' for the males and females.Īn indirect consequence of being active above ground longer is greater exposure and risk of being eaten, as ground squirrels are also an important source of food for many predators, such as foxes, wolves, and eagles. Scientists think this could lead to healthier litters and higher survival rates. The advantage of this phenomenon is that they do not need to use as much stored fat during hibernation and can begin foraging for roots and shoots, berries and seeds sooner in the spring. Changes in females were found to match earlier spring thaw. Measuring the abdominal and/or skin temperature of 199 free-living individual ground squirrels over the same 25-year period, they found that females are changing when they end hibernation, emerging earlier every year, while the males are not. The researchers analysed long-term air and soil temperature data at two sites in Arctic Alaska in conjunction with data collected using biologgers. They resurface from their burrows more than 3 feet below the ground each spring, famished and eager to mate. They still must spend energy to generate enough heat from stored fat to keep tissues from freezing. ''These changes, amounting to about a 10-day reduction of the time soil is frozen at a metre deep, have occurred over just 25 years, which is fairly rapid,'' said Helen Chmura, lead author for this latest research published in the journal Science.Īrctic ground squirrels are known to survive harsh Alaska winters by hibernating for over half the year, drastically slowing their lungs, heart, brain, and body functions. ''Our data show that the active layer, the soil layer above the permafrost, freezes later in the fall, doesn't get as cold in the middle of winter, and thaws slightly earlier in the spring. ''I think the thing that makes our study unique is that we are looking at a long enough dataset to show the impacts of climate change on a mammal in the Arctic,'' said senior author Cory Williams, assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Colorado State University, US, who began studying arctic ground squirrels more than 15 years ago. The females were also found to come out of their hibernation a little earlier in response to warming, which the researchers said could have both positive and negative ripple effects throughout the food web in these ecosystems. PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 26-05-2023 18:00 IST | Created: 26-05-2023 17:30 IST Representative Image Image Credit: WikipediaĪ new research analysed more than 25 years of climate and biological data about Arctic ground squirrels to find shortened hibernation periods and differences between those of males and females. ![]()
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