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Field metabolic rate and water turnover of the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus)

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Abstract

The numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus) is a diurnal and exclusively termitivorous marsupial. This study examines interrelationships between diet, metabolic rate and water turnover for wild, free-living numbats. The numbats (488±20.8 g) remained in mass balance during the study. Their basal metabolic rate (BMR) was 3.6 l CO2 day−1, while their field metabolic rate (FMR) was 10.8±1.22 l CO2 day−1 (269±30.5 kJ day−1). The ratio FMR/BMR was 3±0.3 for numbats. We suggest that the most accurate way to predict the FMR of marsupials is from the regression log FMR=0.852 log BMR+0.767; (r 2=0.97). The FMR of the numbat was lower than, but not significantly different from, that of a generalised marsupial, both before (76%) and after (62–69%) correction for the significant effect of phylogeny on FMR. However the numbat's FMR is more comparable with that of other arid-habitat Australia marsupials (98–135%), for which the regression relating mass and FMR is significantly lower than for nonarid-habitat marsupials, independent of phylogeny. The field water turnover rate (FWTR) of free-living numbats (84.1 ml H2O day−1) was highly correlated with FMR, and was typical (89–98%) of that for an arid-habitat marsupial after phylogenetic correction. The higher than expected water economy index for the numbat (FWTR/FMR=0.3±0.03) suggests that either the numbats were drinking during the study, the water content of their diet was high, or the digestibility of their termite diet was low. Habitat and phylogenetic influences on BMR and FMR appear to have pre-adapted the numbat to a low-energy termitivorous niche.

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Abbreviations

BMR:

basal metabolic rate

FMR :

field metabolic rate

EWL:

evaporative water loss

FWTR:

field water turnover rate

MR:

metabolic rate

PVR:

phylogenetic vector regression

RER:

respiratory exchange ratio

Ta :

ambient temperature

Tb :

body temperature

TBW:

total body water

V̇CO2 :

rate of carbon dioxide production

V̇O2 :

rate of oxygen consumption

WEI:

water economy index

WER :

water efflux rate

WIR :

water influx rate

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Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to Dr Tony Friend and Neil Thomas, Department of Conservation and Land Management, for permission to work with the numbats, for locating and capturing the numbats, and for continual support throughout the study. We thank Dr Kristen Warren and Dr Ralph Swan, Murdoch University, for taking the blood samples, Felicity Bradshaw for all her assistance in the laboratory, and Alex Larcombe for his assistance in the field. We thank the reviewers of this manuscript for their particularly helpful comments. This study was approved by the University of Western Australia Animal Ethics Committee, and was supported by an APRA to C. Cooper and by the Australian Governments Cooperative Research Centres Program through funds from the CRC for Conservation and Management of Marsupials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zoology, School of Animal Biology M092, University of Western Australia, Stirling Highway, 6009, Crawley, WA, Australia

    C. E. Cooper, P. C. Withers & S. D. Bradshaw

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  1. C. E. Cooper
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  2. P. C. Withers
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  3. S. D. Bradshaw
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Correspondence to C. E. Cooper.

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Communicated by I.D. Hume

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Cooper, C.E., Withers, P.C. & Bradshaw, S.D. Field metabolic rate and water turnover of the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus). J Comp Physiol B 173, 687–693 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-003-0380-6

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