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Energy turnover in European hares is centrally limited during early, but not during peak lactation

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Abstract

We investigated metabolizable energy intake (MEI) and milk energy output in European hares throughout gestation and lactation in females raising three young, i.e., close to maximum litter size in this precocial species. We hypothesized that herbivorous hares may face a central limitation of energy turnover during lactation, imposed by maximum capacity of the gastrointestinal tract. Females were provided with low-energy or high-energy diets, either continually, or during lactation only. Unexpectedly, females on either diet reached identical peak MEIs (>6 times BMR) during late lactation, with females on low-energy diet increasing food intake proportionally. Thus, we reject our hypothesis that in lactating hares, peak MEI is centrally limited. During early lactation, MEI and milk transfer was, however, significantly impaired in females on the low-energy diet, indicating a temporal central limitation due to a time-lag caused by the readjustment of energy intake capacity. Importantly, irrespective of the diet, females significantly increased peak MEI late in the breeding season. Consequently, earlier in the season, when energy reserves are still high, energy throughput was not limited by physiological constraints at all. We conclude that extreme MEI may have fitness costs, and that females maximize lifetime reproductive success by actively down-regulating MEI whenever possible.

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Abbreviations

AE:

Assimilation efficiency

ADF:

Acid detergent fibre

BMR:

Basal metabolic rate

GEI:

Gross energy intake

LM:

Linear models

LME:

Linear mixed effects models

MEI:

Metabolizable energy intake

NFE:

Nitrogen free extracts

NIRS:

Near infrared spectroscopy

SusEI:

Sustained energy intake

SusMR:

Sustained metabolic rate

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by grant P17794-B06 from the Austrian Science Fund, and by the province of Lower Austria. We are grateful to the animal house facility staff (Michaela Salaba, Peter Steiger) and to numerous students who helped with hare welfare and data sampling. We would like to thank Eva Steiger and Le Minh Hien who performed all chemical analyses under direction of Frieda Tataruch. All experiments described here comply with the current laws in Austria, where the experiments were performed.

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  1. Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Savoyenstrasse 1, 1160, Vienna, Austria

    Teresa G. Valencak & Thomas Ruf

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  1. Teresa G. Valencak
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  2. Thomas Ruf
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Correspondence to Thomas Ruf.

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Communicated by G. Heldmaier.

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Valencak, T.G., Ruf, T. Energy turnover in European hares is centrally limited during early, but not during peak lactation. J Comp Physiol B 179, 933–943 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-009-0376-y

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