An important question related to survival of dehydrating animals is whether feeding provides a net gain of water — contributing postprandial free water and metabolic water — or, alternatively, whether digestion and assimilation of ingested food incur a net loss of water because of requirements for digestion and the excretion of resulting metabolic wastes. Here I address the question whether voluntary drinking increases or decreases following the ingestion of food. Increased postprandial drinking implies that food consumption increases rather than decreases the requirement for free water, whereas decreased postprandial drinking suggests there is a net profit of water from food. Snakes are ideally suited for such inquiry because they feed intermittently, and the temporal separation of meals allows relatively clear examination of the associated patterns of pre- and postprandial drinking. Voluntary drinking associated with meal consumption was quantified during consecutive feeding trials in four species representing two families of snakes. Postprandial relative to preprandial drinking increased in all four species, indicating that eating increases the physiological requirement for water. These data add to a growing literature pointing to some generality that eating can have negative rather than positive consequences for fluid homeostasis in some dehydrating animals.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
RESEARCH ARTICLE|
01 January 2017
Feeding begets drinking: insights from intermittent feeding in snakes
Harvey B. Lillywhite
Harvey B. Lillywhite
*
Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8525, USA
*Author for correspondence: hblill@ufl.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
Harvey B. Lillywhite
*
Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8525, USA
*Author for correspondence: hblill@ufl.edu
Received:
26 May 2017
Accepted:
27 Jul 2017
Online ISSN: 1477-9145
Print ISSN: 0022-0949
Funding
National Science Foundation
(DGE-0802261)
J Exp Biol jeb.163725.
Article history
Received:
26 May 2017
Accepted:
27 Jul 2017
Currently Viewing Accepted Manuscript - Newer Version Available
01 Oct 2017
- Standard view
- Views Icon Views
- Open the PDF for in another window
-
Article Versions Icon
Versions
- Version of Record 01 October 2017
- Accepted Manuscript 01 January 2017
- Share Icon Share
-
Tools Icon
Tools
- Search Site
Citation
Harvey B. Lillywhite; Feeding begets drinking: insights from intermittent feeding in snakes. J Exp Biol 2017; jeb.163725. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.163725
Download citation file: