Evaporative cooling via panting and its metabolic and water balance costs for lizards in the American Southwest

Abstract

In lizards there is considerable variation in the ability to dissipate environmental/endogenous heat loads through evaporative cooling via panting, which effects how long lizards can spend exposed to high solar heat loads. We recently described the differing capacities of lizards to depress body temperature (Tb) through evaporative cooling via panting. Here, we link panting and Tb depression with rates of evaporative water loss and its metabolic costs under high heat loads. We used flow-through respirometry to measure evaporative water loss rates and metabolism of 17 lizard species from the American Southwest while simultaneously measuring Tb. We exposed lizards to air temperatures (Ta) ranging from 35°C to their critical thermal maximum (CTmax) while marking the onset of panting. We then estimated pre-panting Q10 values for metabolism to partition increases in metabolism associated with the van’t Hoff effect from the mechanical cost of panting with increasing heat loads. We found that evaporative cooling costs substantially varied among species, with panting effort significantly affecting lizards’ evaporative capacity. Lizard evaporation rates ranged from 0.32 to 1.5 g H2O h-1, with individuals losing as much as 6% h-1 of body mass while panting. Lizards also experienced an increase of up to 7.9-fold in metabolic rate while panting, although the overall energetic costs of panting remained relatively low compared with evaporative water costs. Across species, there was a significant positive relationship between the overall rate of evaporative heat loss and the maximum Ta–Tb gradient a species could maintain. While evaporative cooling may be an effective mechanism for reducing Tb and extending activity in hot environments for many species, it has significant metabolic and water balance costs that should be considered, as habitats with high environmental heat loads can be especially costly to an animal’s water budgets.