Torpor as an emergency solution? - Julia Nowack
Wednesday 8th June, 2016.
Torpor, the ability of some animals to temporarily reduce body temperature and metabolic rate, has long been related to survival of seasonal bottlenecks in primarily cold habitats. However, findings of torpor use in species living in tropical habitats have challenged this view and recently it has become evident that torpor has many more functions than just energy conservation in winter. The list of “the other functions of torpor” seems to be continuously growing. Major recent findings in torpor research are that animals employ torpor to survive and cope with adverse and unpredictable conditions during and after natural disasters, in particular fires and storms. Such data support the hypothesis that the opportunistic use of torpor during unpredictable conditions will likely enhance survival. I will introduce some of my findings of torpor use in response to energetic emergencies that suggest that heterothermic species with their flexible energy requirements have an adaptive advantage over homeotherms in the context of climate change.
Biography
Dr Julia Nowack is an ecophysiologist interested in thermoregulation of mammals and the ability of heterothermic animals to use torpor during unpredictable bottlenecks. She completed her PhD at the University of Hamburg in Germany and in 2014 came to Australia to work at the University of New England. She is currently an Endeavour Research Fellow at Western Sydney University and just received a fellowship from the Humboldt foundation to work at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Austria.
