Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Arregui, M., Singleton, E. M., Saavedra, P., Pabst, D. A., Moore, M. J., Sierra, E., Rivero, M. A., Câmara, N., Niemeyer, M., Fahlman, A., McLellan, W. A., & Bernaldo de Quirós, Y. Myoglobin concentration and oxygen stores in different functional muscle groups from three small cetacean species. Animals, 11(2), (2021): 451, https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11020451.
Description:
Compared with terrestrial mammals, marine mammals possess increased muscle myoglobin concentrations (Mb concentration, g Mb · 100g−1 muscle), enhancing their onboard oxygen (O2) stores and their aerobic dive limit. Although myoglobin is not homogeneously distributed, cetacean muscle O2 stores have been often determined by measuring Mb concentration from a single muscle sample (longissimus dorsi) and multiplying that value by the animal’s locomotor muscle or total muscle mass. This study serves to determine the accuracy of previous cetacean muscle O2 stores calculations. For that, body muscles from three delphinid species: Delphinus delphis, Stenella coeruleoalba, and Stenella frontalis, were dissected and weighed. Mb concentration was calculated from six muscles/muscle groups (epaxial, hypaxial and rectus abdominis; mastohumeralis; sternohyoideus; and dorsal scalenus), each representative of different functional groups (locomotion powering swimming, pectoral fin movement, feeding and respiration, respectively). Results demonstrated that the Mb concentration was heterogeneously distributed, being significantly higher in locomotor muscles. Locomotor muscles were the major contributors to total muscle O2 stores (mean 92.8%) due to their high Mb concentration and large muscle masses. Compared to this method, previous studies assuming homogenous Mb concentration distribution likely underestimated total muscle O2 stores by 10% when only considering locomotor muscles and overestimated them by 13% when total muscle mass was considered.
Description:
This research was funded by the US Office of Naval Research N00014-13-1-0773, the Subprograma de Biodiversidad del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España (MINECO CGL 2012-39681 and CGL2015-71498-P) and the Canary Islands Government, which has funded and provided support to the stranding network. M.A. is funded by the University Professor Formation fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, and Y.B.d.Q. is funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Keywords:
D. delphis
;
S. coeruleoalba
;
S. frontalis
;
muscle mass
;
heterogeneity
;
aerobic dive limit
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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