Too cold is better than too hot: Preferred temperatures and basking behaviour in a tropical freshwater turtle

Kidman, Rosie A., McKnight, Donald T., Schwarzkopf, Lin, and Nordberg, Eric J. (2023) Too cold is better than too hot: Preferred temperatures and basking behaviour in a tropical freshwater turtle. Austral Ecology, 48 (8). pp. 1532-1546.

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Abstract

Thermoregulation is critical to the survival of animals. Tropical environments can be particularly thermally challenging as they reach very high, even lethal, temperatures. The thermoregulatory responses of tropical freshwater turtles to these challenges are poorly known. One common thermoregulatory behaviour is diurnal basking, which, for many species, facilitates heat gain. Recently, however, a north-eastern Australian population of Krefft's river turtles (Emydura macquarii krefftii) has been observed basking nocturnally, possibly to allow cooling. To test this, we determined the thermal preference (central 50% of temperatures selected) of E. m. krefftii in an aquatic thermal gradient in the laboratory. We then conducted a manipulative experiment to test the effects of water temperatures, both lower and higher than preferred temperature, on diurnal and nocturnal basking. The preferred temperature range fell between 25.3°C (±SD: 1.5) and 27.6°C (±1.4) during the day, and 25.3°C (±2.4) and 26.8°C (±2.5) at night. Based on this, we exposed turtles to three 24 h water temperature treatments (‘cool’ [23°C], ‘preferred’ [26°C] and ‘warm’ [29°C]) while air temperature remained constant at 26°C. Turtles basked more frequently and for longer periods during both the day and night when water temperatures were above their preferred range (the ‘warm’ treatment). This population frequently encounters aquatic temperatures above the preferred thermal range, and our results support the hypothesis that nocturnal basking is a mechanism for escaping unfavourably warm water. Targeted field studies would be a valuable next step in understanding the seasonal scope of this behaviour in a natural environment.

Item ID: 79040
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1442-9993
Keywords: Australia, ectotherm, nocturnal basking, thermoregulation, thermoregulatory cooling
Copyright Information: © 2023 The Authors. Austral Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Ecological Society of Australia. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Date Deposited: 23 Jun 2023 03:49
FoR Codes: 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410401 Conservation and biodiversity @ 100%
SEO Codes: 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1899 Other environmental management > 189999 Other environmental management not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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