Beaulieu Michaël, Touzalin Frédéric, Dool Serena E, Teeling Emma C, Puechmaille Sébastien J
Zoological Institute & Museum, University of Greifswald, Loitzer Str. 26, 17489 Greifswald, Germany.
School of Biology and Environmental Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Conserv Physiol. 2020 Sep 14;8(1):coaa083. doi: 10.1093/conphys/coaa083. eCollection 2020.
To increase the applicability and success of physiological approaches in conservation plans, conservation physiology should be based on ecologically relevant relationships between physiological markers and environmental variation that can only be obtained from wild populations. Given their integrative and multifaceted aspects, markers of oxidative status have recently been considered in conservation physiology, but still need to be validated across environmental conditions and locations. Here, we examined whether inter-annual variation in two oxidative markers, plasma antioxidant capacity and plasma hydroperoxides, followed inter-annual variation in temperature anomalies and associated vegetation changes in four colonies of long-lived greater mouse-eared bats () monitored over five consecutive years. We found that the plasma antioxidant capacity of bats decreased while plasma hydroperoxide concentrations increased with increasing temperature anomalies occurring in the two weeks before blood sampling. Moreover, the antioxidant defences of these bats reflected vegetation indices, which themselves reflected the thermal conditions experienced by bats in their foraging habitat. Variation in oxidative markers therefore appears to be due to variation in thermoregulatory costs and to indirect changes in foraging costs. Overall, these results validate the use of markers of oxidative status in conservation physiology to monitor thermal perturbations recently experienced by animals in their natural habitat. However, even though oxidative markers varied in the same direction in all four bat colonies across years, the amplitude of their response differed. If these different physiological responses reflect different performances (e.g. productivity, survival rate) between colonies, this implies that, if necessary, conservation measures may need to be applied at the local scale.
为提高生理学方法在保护计划中的适用性和成功率，保护生理学应以生理指标与环境变化之间生态相关的关系为基础，而这种关系只能从野生种群中获取。鉴于氧化状态指标具有综合性和多方面性，其最近已在保护生理学中得到考虑，但仍需在不同环境条件和地点进行验证。在此，我们研究了在连续五年监测的四个长寿大鼠耳蝠（）种群中，血浆抗氧化能力和血浆氢过氧化物这两种氧化指标的年际变化是否跟随温度异常的年际变化以及相关的植被变化。我们发现，在采血前两周内，随着温度异常升高，蝙蝠的血浆抗氧化能力下降，而血浆氢过氧化物浓度上升。此外，这些蝙蝠的抗氧化防御反映了植被指数，而植被指数本身又反映了蝙蝠在觅食栖息地所经历的热状况。因此，氧化指标的变化似乎是由于体温调节成本的变化以及觅食成本的间接变化所致。总体而言，这些结果验证了在保护生理学中使用氧化状态指标来监测动物在其自然栖息地最近经历的热扰动。然而，尽管在所有四个蝙蝠种群中氧化指标多年来都朝着相同方向变化，但其反应幅度有所不同。如果这些不同的生理反应反映了种群之间不同的表现（如生产力、存活率），这意味着如有必要，保护措施可能需要在地方层面实施。
