Assessment of oxygen consumption in response to progressive hypoxia.

A new method is presented for describing the rate of oxygen consumption in response to progressive hypoxia. The method consists of screening candidate functions describing the relationship between Vo2 (oxygen consumption rate) and Po2 (ambient oxygen concentration) by testing each for fit to observed data for a single curve and the function that best fits is chosen using lowest AICc value as the criterion. Descriptive statistics are then extracted from the selected function that best describes the pattern present in the curve. Several new descriptive statistics for the pattern of response are proposed which are based on the null model of simple diffusion and no regulation. The method quantifies deviation from the null model at each point on the curve and measures both positive and negative deviation which occur when the curve changes more slowly or more rapidly than the null model predicts, respectively. The new descriptive statistics generalize the traditional one used in the past, the critical oxygen tension (Pc), and allow interpretation of a variety of shapes of curves which cannot be analyzed with conventional methods. Because the method is descriptive, it does not implicate any specific mechanisms in generating the response. The method is applied to data from 68 animals in 14 different species groups reported in the literature. The overall results suggest the existence of substantial diversity in response types among animals, which requires a more complex description than has traditionally been used.