Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Brain Function Research Group, School of Physiology, Faculty of Health Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Am J Primatol. 2020 Dec;82(12):e23204. doi: 10.1002/ajp.23204. Epub 2020 Oct 11.
Understanding the physiological processes that underpin primate performance is key if we are to assess how a primate might respond when navigating new and changing environments. Given the connection between a mammal's ability to thermoregulate and the changing demands of its thermal environment, increasing attention is being devoted to the study of thermoregulatory processes as a means to assess primate performance. Infrared thermography can be used to record the body surface temperatures of free-ranging animals. However, some uncertainty remains as to how these measurements can be used to approximate core body temperature. Here, we use data collected from wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) to examine the relationship between infrared body surface temperature, core body (intra-abdominal) temperature, and local climate, to determine to what extent surface temperatures reflect core body temperature. While we report a positive association between surface and core body temperature-a finding that has previously been used to justify the use of surface temperature measurements as a proxy for core temperature regulation-when we controlled for the effect of the local climate in our analyses, this relationship was no longer observed. That is, body surface temperatures were solely predicted by local climate, and not core body temperatures, suggesting that surface temperatures tell us more about the environment a primate is in, and less about the thermal status of its body core in that environment. Despite the advantages of a noninvasive means to detect and record animal temperatures, infrared thermography alone cannot be used to approximate core body temperature in wild primates.
如果我们要评估灵长类动物在新的和不断变化的环境中导航时可能会做出何种反应，那么了解支撑灵长类动物表现的生理过程是关键。鉴于哺乳动物调节体温的能力与其热环境不断变化的需求之间存在联系，人们越来越关注研究体温调节过程，将其作为评估灵长类动物表现的一种手段。红外热成像技术可用于记录自由放养动物的体表温度。然而，这些测量值如何用于近似核心体温仍存在一些不确定性。在这里，我们使用从野生绿长尾猴（Chlorocebus pygerythrus）身上收集的数据，研究了红外体表温度、核心体温（腹腔内）和局部气候之间的关系，以确定体表温度在多大程度上反映核心体温。虽然我们报告了体表温度和核心体温之间存在正相关关系，这一发现以前曾被用来证明使用体表温度测量值作为核心体温调节的替代值是合理的，但当我们在分析中控制了局部气候的影响时，这种关系就不再存在了。也就是说，体表温度仅由局部气候决定，而不是核心体温，这表明体表温度更多地反映了灵长类动物所处的环境，而不是其在该环境中核心体温的状况。尽管非侵入性方法检测和记录动物体温具有优势，但仅使用红外热成像技术无法在野生灵长类动物中近似核心体温。
