Cost of foraging in the subterranean rodent Ctenomys talarum: effect of soil hardness

By F. Luna, C. D. Antinuchi. 2006

83 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subterranean burrows provide inhabitants with shelter, a relatively stable thermal environment, and potentially access to food resources. However, one cost of living in such burrows is the energetically expensive mode of locomotion. Soil hardness and the physiological capabilities of animals are likely important factors that affect the cost of burrow construction, and hence, distribution of burrows. We assessed the effect of soil hardness on the cost of digging by captive individual Ctenomys talarum Thomas, 1898 in soft soils. Digging metabolic rate (DMR) was higher in harder soil than in softer soil (408.30 ± 51.35 mL O2·h–1 vs. 267.59 ± 20.97 mL O2·h–1, respectively). In C. talarum, a higher soil hardness augments DMR by increasing, in terms of the cost of burrowing model, the costs of shearing and of pushing the removed soil. Additionally, these costs differ between C. talarum and other subterranean species (e.g., Thomomys bottae (Eydoux and Gervais, 1836)), depending on soil hardness and digging mode....

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2c972c40b4ab64d23a7422b1b5e91a4fdbe676c6

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

1. A. Cutrera
2. Matías S. Mora
3. A. Vassallo
4. C. D. Antinuchi

Citations in the corpus

• HOME-RANGE AND ACTIVITY PATTERNS OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN SUBTERRANEAN RODENT CTENOMYS TALARUM (2006, background): “Although the total cost of digging an entire burrow system appears to be low for C. talarum (Antinuchi et al., in press), other studies showed that for Talas tuco-tucos from Mar de Cobo, burrowing in a harder and more compacted soil represents a higher energetic cost (Luna and Antinuchi 2006).”