Can reptile embryos influence their own rates of heating and cooling?

Previous investigations have assumed that embryos lack the capacity of physiological thermoregulation until they are large enough for their own metabolic heat production to influence nest temperatures. Contrary to intuition, reptile embryos may be capable of physiological thermoregulation. In our ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-06, Vol.8 (6), p.e67095-e67095
Main Authors: Du, Wei-Guo, Tu, Ming-Chung, Radder, Rajkumar S, Shine, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Balloons
Biology
Birds
Blood flow
Body Temperature Regulation - physiology
Boidae - embryology
Boidae - physiology
Cold Temperature
Containers
Cooling
Cooling rate
Editors
Eggs
Embryo, Nonmammalian - physiology
Embryos
Evolution
Heart
Heart Rate - physiology
Heat
Heat exchange
Heating
Heating and cooling
Incubation
Medicine
Metabolism
Ovum - physiology
Physiology
Python molurus
Reptiles
Reptilia
Snakes
Snakes - embryology
Snakes - physiology
Thermoregulation
Zoology
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Summary:Previous investigations have assumed that embryos lack the capacity of physiological thermoregulation until they are large enough for their own metabolic heat production to influence nest temperatures. Contrary to intuition, reptile embryos may be capable of physiological thermoregulation. In our experiments, egg-sized objects (dead or infertile eggs, water-filled balloons, glass jars) cooled down more rapidly than they heated up, whereas live snake eggs heated more rapidly than they cooled. In a nest with diel thermal fluctuations, that hysteresis could increase the embryo's effective incubation temperature. The mechanisms for controlling rates of thermal exchange are unclear, but may involve facultative adjustment of blood flow. Heart rates of snake embryos were higher during cooling than during heating, the opposite pattern to that seen in adult reptiles. Our data challenge the view of reptile eggs as thermally passive, and suggest that embryos of reptile species with large eggs can influence their own rates of heating and cooling.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0067095