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The Use and Application of Stable Isotope Analysis to the Study of Starvation, Fasting, and Nutritional Stress in Animals

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Comparative Physiology of Fasting, Starvation, and Food Limitation

Abstract

Maintaining adequate energy and mass balance is necessary to the survival and reproduction of any organism. However, nearly all organisms experience periods of catabolism, when insufficient food is being consumed and endogenous stores must be metabolized to provide the difference. The ubiquity of this phenomenon, perhaps an intuitive understanding of the threat that starvation poses to an individual’s survival, and the fact that many organisms seem to "voluntarily" enter long periods of catabolism (fasting) has caused great interest among physiologists to discover and understand the mechanisms organisms have evolved to survive such periods. In wild animals, merely detecting the existence and duration of periods of fasting or starvation can be difficult and much effort has been devoted toward establishing stable isotope analysis (SIA) as a tool for detecting and understanding the duration of catabolic states in wild animals. However, the results of these studies have been mixed. Increasingly, SIA is also being used to investigate the mechanisms organisms use to cope with periods of catabolism: how nutrients are routed, which are recycled, which are used for energy, and how that differs between different organs and organ systems. This chapter reviews the past and current applications of SIA for understanding fasting and starvation in animals and identifies areas where SIA may yet be applied to increase our understanding of fasting and starvation.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Marshall McCue for giving me the opportunity to contribute this chapter and for reviewing this chapter. His comments and insights were very helpful and his patience greatly appreciated.

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  1. C.W. Department of Biology, Post Campus, Long Island University, 720 Northern Boulevard, Brookville, NY, 11548, USA

    Kent A. Hatch

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  1. Kent A. Hatch
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Correspondence to Kent A. Hatch .

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  1. , Department of Biological Sciences, St. Mary's University, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, 78228-8511, Texas, USA

    Marshall D. McCue

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Hatch, K.A. (2012). The Use and Application of Stable Isotope Analysis to the Study of Starvation, Fasting, and Nutritional Stress in Animals. In: McCue, M. (eds) Comparative Physiology of Fasting, Starvation, and Food Limitation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29056-5_20

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