McGee Georgia Evelyn, Clark Timothy Darren
AIMS@JCU Collaborative Program, School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia
Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB 3 Townsville MC, Townsville, Queensland 4810, Australia.
Biol Lett. 2014 Dec;10(12):20140823. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0823.
The inflation response of pufferfishes is one of the most iconic predator defence strategies in nature. Current dogma suggests that pufferfish inflation represents a breath-holding response, whereby gill oxygen uptake ceases for the duration of inflation and cutaneous respiration increases to compensate. Here, we show that the black-saddled pufferfish (Canthigaster valentini) has an excellent capacity for oxygen uptake while inflated, with uptake rates increasing to five-times that of resting levels. Moreover, we show that this species has negligible capacity for cutaneous respiration, concluding that the gills are the primary site of oxygen uptake while inflated. Despite this, post-deflation recovery of aerobic metabolism took an average of 5.6 h, suggesting a contribution of anaerobic metabolism during pre-inflation activity and during the act of ingesting water to achieve inflation.
河豚的膨胀反应是自然界中最具标志性的捕食者防御策略之一。目前的理论认为，河豚的膨胀是一种屏气反应，即在膨胀过程中鳃停止摄取氧气，皮肤呼吸增加以进行补偿。在这里，我们表明，黑背河豚（Canthigaster valentini）在膨胀时具有出色的氧气摄取能力，摄取率增加到静息水平的五倍。此外，我们表明该物种的皮肤呼吸能力可忽略不计，得出结论：鳃是膨胀时氧气摄取的主要部位。尽管如此，放气后有氧代谢的恢复平均需要5.6小时，这表明在膨胀前的活动以及摄取水以实现膨胀的过程中，无氧代谢起到了作用。
