VIEW THE VIDEO AND COMMENTARY ON THIS NEW FINDING ABOUT POLAR
BEAR METABOLISM AND SHRINKING ICE FLOWS
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/peek-polar-bears-lives-reveals-revved-metabolisms?utm_source=editorspicks020418&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Editors_Picks#video
A peek into polar bears’
lives reveals revved-up
metabolisms-
In a world with declining Arctic sea ice, that
could be a problem
Susan Milius; FEBRUARY 1, 2018
Female polar bears prowling springtime sea ice have extreme weight swings, some losing more than 10 percent of their body mass in just over a week. And the beginnings of bear video blogging help explain why.
An ambitious study of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in Alaska has found that their overall metabolic rate is 1.6 times greater than thought, says wildlife biologist Anthony Pagano of the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage. With bodies that burn energy fast, polar bears need to eat a blubbery adult ringed seal (or 19 newborn seals) every 10 to 12 days just to maintain weight, Pagano and his colleagues report in the Feb. 2 Science. Camera-collar vlogs, a bear’s-eye view of the carnivores’ diet and lifestyle secrets, show just how well individual bears are doing.
The study puts the firmest numbers yet on basic needs of polar bears, whose lives are tied to the annual spread and shrinkage of Arctic sea ice, Pagano says. As the climate has warmed, the annual ice minimum has grown skimpier by some 14 percent per decade (SN Online: 9/19/16), raising worries about polar bear populations. These bears hunt the fat-rich seals that feed and breed around ice, and as seal habitat shrinks, so do the bears’ prospects
Pagano and colleagues used helicopters to search for polar bears on ice about off the Alaska coast in the Beaufort Sea. It’s “a lot of grueling hours looking out the window watching tracks and looking at whiteness,” he says.
After tracking down female bears without cubs, the researchers fitted the animals with a camera collar. A full day’s doings of bears on the sea ice have been mostly a matter of speculation, Pagano says. Collar videos showed that 90 percent of seal hunts are ambushes, often by a bear lurking near a hole in the ice until a seal bursts up for a gulp of air. Videos also caught early glimpses of the breeding season and what passes for courtship among polar bears. Males, Pagano says, “pretty much harass the female until she’ll submit.”
IN ADDITION TO SEALS, POLAR BEARS WILL FEED ON WALRUSES
The researchers also injected each bear with a dose of water with extra neutrons in both the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Eight to 11 days later, the team caught the same bear to check what was left of the altered atoms. Lower traces of the special form of oxygen indicated that the bear’s body chemistry had been very active, and that the bear had exhaled lots of carbon dioxide. (The unusual form of hydrogen let scientists correct results for oxygen atoms lost in H2O, for instance when the bear urinated.)
CARIBOU CARRION JUST DOES NOT SUPPLY ENOUGH CALORIES
FOR LONG TERM POLAR BEAR REPRODUCTION SUCCESS
Using CO₂ data from nine females, Pagano and his colleagues calculated the field metabolic rates for polar bears going about their springtime lives. The team found that female bears need to eat a bit more than 12,000 kilocalories (or what human dieters call calories) a day just to stay even. That estimate adds some 4,600 kilocalories a day to the old estimate. But merely maintaining weight isn’t enough for a polar lifestyle. To survive lean times, polar bears typically pack on extra weight in spring.
SEALS ARE THE MAINSTAY OF THE POLAR BEAR DIET
To get a broader view of the bears’ energy needs, similar metabolic measurements for other seasons would be useful, says physiological ecologist John Whiteman of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. That could help resolve whether and how much bear metabolism drops when there’s little food, a response that might protect bears during hard times. Using temperature loggers to estimate metabolic rates, he has seen only a gradual decline in metabolic rates in summer as food gets tougher to find. Winter metabolic rates remain a mystery.
WHILE FISH ARE A TASTY SNACK, THEY ARE NOT THE
KEY TO FULFILLING POLAR BEAR CAOLORIC NEEDS
Hunting success and bear activity are only part of the picture of polar bear health, says ecotoxicologist Sabrina Tartu, of the Norwegian Polar Institute, which is based in Tromsø. Tartu coauthored a 2017 paper showing that toxic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, can build up in bear fat. Such “pollutants could, by direct or indirect pathways, disrupt metabolic rates,” she says. So changing the climate is far from the only way humankind could affect polar bear energy and hunting dynamics.
An ambitious study of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in Alaska has found that their overall metabolic rate is 1.6 times greater than thought, says wildlife biologist Anthony Pagano of the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage. With bodies that burn energy fast, polar bears need to eat a blubbery adult ringed seal (or 19 newborn seals) every 10 to 12 days just to maintain weight, Pagano and his colleagues report in the Feb. 2 Science. Camera-collar vlogs, a bear’s-eye view of the carnivores’ diet and lifestyle secrets, show just how well individual bears are doing.
The study puts the firmest numbers yet on basic needs of polar bears, whose lives are tied to the annual spread and shrinkage of Arctic sea ice, Pagano says. As the climate has warmed, the annual ice minimum has grown skimpier by some 14 percent per decade (SN Online: 9/19/16), raising worries about polar bear populations. These bears hunt the fat-rich seals that feed and breed around ice, and as seal habitat shrinks, so do the bears’ prospects
What's for dinner
Weight changes varied a lot for the nine female polar bears studied for 8 to 11 days. Fat seals were the richest prey, but hungry bears also picked muscle tissue out of seal carcasses and took advantage of a whale that human hunters had caught
Pagano and colleagues used helicopters to search for polar bears on ice about off the Alaska coast in the Beaufort Sea. It’s “a lot of grueling hours looking out the window watching tracks and looking at whiteness,” he says.
After tracking down female bears without cubs, the researchers fitted the animals with a camera collar. A full day’s doings of bears on the sea ice have been mostly a matter of speculation, Pagano says. Collar videos showed that 90 percent of seal hunts are ambushes, often by a bear lurking near a hole in the ice until a seal bursts up for a gulp of air. Videos also caught early glimpses of the breeding season and what passes for courtship among polar bears. Males, Pagano says, “pretty much harass the female until she’ll submit.”
The researchers also injected each bear with a dose of water with extra neutrons in both the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Eight to 11 days later, the team caught the same bear to check what was left of the altered atoms. Lower traces of the special form of oxygen indicated that the bear’s body chemistry had been very active, and that the bear had exhaled lots of carbon dioxide. (The unusual form of hydrogen let scientists correct results for oxygen atoms lost in H2O, for instance when the bear urinated.)
CARIBOU CARRION JUST DOES NOT SUPPLY ENOUGH CALORIES
FOR LONG TERM POLAR BEAR REPRODUCTION SUCCESS
Using CO₂ data from nine females, Pagano and his colleagues calculated the field metabolic rates for polar bears going about their springtime lives. The team found that female bears need to eat a bit more than 12,000 kilocalories (or what human dieters call calories) a day just to stay even. That estimate adds some 4,600 kilocalories a day to the old estimate. But merely maintaining weight isn’t enough for a polar lifestyle. To survive lean times, polar bears typically pack on extra weight in spring.
SEALS ARE THE MAINSTAY OF THE POLAR BEAR DIET
To get a broader view of the bears’ energy needs, similar metabolic measurements for other seasons would be useful, says physiological ecologist John Whiteman of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. That could help resolve whether and how much bear metabolism drops when there’s little food, a response that might protect bears during hard times. Using temperature loggers to estimate metabolic rates, he has seen only a gradual decline in metabolic rates in summer as food gets tougher to find. Winter metabolic rates remain a mystery.
WHILE FISH ARE A TASTY SNACK, THEY ARE NOT THE
KEY TO FULFILLING POLAR BEAR CAOLORIC NEEDS
Hunting success and bear activity are only part of the picture of polar bear health, says ecotoxicologist Sabrina Tartu, of the Norwegian Polar Institute, which is based in Tromsø. Tartu coauthored a 2017 paper showing that toxic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, can build up in bear fat. Such “pollutants could, by direct or indirect pathways, disrupt metabolic rates,” she says. So changing the climate is far from the only way humankind could affect polar bear energy and hunting dynamics.
Citations
A.M. Pagano et al. High-energy, high-fat lifestyle challenges an Arctic apex predator, the polar bear. Science. Vol. 359, February 2, 2018, p. 568. doi: 10.1126/science.aan8677.
S. Tartu et al. Sea ice-associated decline in body condition leads to increased concentrations of lipophilic pollutants in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from Svalbard, Norway. Science of the Total Environment. Vol. 576, January 2017, p. 409.
S. Tartu et al. Sea ice-associated decline in body condition leads to increased concentrations of lipophilic pollutants in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from Svalbard, Norway. Science of the Total Environment. Vol. 576, January 2017, p. 409.
Further Reading
J.P. Whiteman. Out of balance in the Arctic. Science. Vol. 359, February 2, 2018, p. 514. doi: 10.1126/science.aan6723.
T. Sumner. Iceless Arctic summers now expected by 2050s. Science News Online, August 3, 2015.
S. Milius. Year in review: Sea ice loss will shake up ecosystems. Science News. Vol. 190, December 24, 2016, p. 23.
T. Sumner. Arctic sea ice shrinks to second-lowest low on record. Science News Online, September 9, 2016.
T. Sumner. Iceless Arctic summers now expected by 2050s. Science News Online, August 3, 2015.
S. Milius. Year in review: Sea ice loss will shake up ecosystems. Science News. Vol. 190, December 24, 2016, p. 23.
T. Sumner. Arctic sea ice shrinks to second-lowest low on record. Science News Online, September 9, 2016.
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