Summary
Snakes,Vipera berus, were acclimated to 5 and 25 °C for 3 months preceding measurements of O2 uptake and blood respiratory properties. O2 uptake measured at the lower acclimation temperature (5 °C) shows lower values for the cold-acclimated snakes. Measured at 25 °C cold-acclimation results in O2 uptakes slightly higher than in warm-acclimated snakes. The temperature sensitivity (Q10) of aerobic metabolism in thus higher for the cold-acclimated snakes being 3.17 compared to 2.11 for the warmacclimated.
O2-Hb dissociation curves of whole blood from the two acclimation groups show a marked increase in O2 affinity associated with cold-acclimation independent of blood pH. The shift in O2 affinity correlates with a marked decrease in red cell organic phosphate concentration (ATP) in cold-acclimated snakes. The temperature sensitivity of the O2-Hb binding expressed by the ΔH values was rather uniform at about −11 kcal·mol−1 (O2) for both acclimation groups. The CO2 Bohr factor in cold-acclimated blood at −0.55 was about double that in warm-acclimated. Then value for both acclimation groups increased with higher temperatures. Hematocrit and blood O2 capacity were higher in the cold-acclimated snakes.
The acclimation effects on O2 uptake, O2-Hb affinity and the Bohr effect, are opposite to those obtained earlier on reptiles at lower latitudes. It is discussed how a downward translation of the O2 uptake-temperature curve and a high thermal sensitivity (Q10) may be adaptive for species at latitudinal extremes where the active season is short and diurnal temperatures fluctuate widely. It is further discussed how a change in O2 affinity by its influence on the capillary to cellular O2 gradients may affect the aerobic metabolism.
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Johansen, K., Lykkeboe, G. Thermal acclimation of aerobic metabolism and O2-Hb binding in the snake,Vipera berus . J Comp Physiol B 130, 293–300 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00689846
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00689846