A proximal-distal difference in bat wing muscle thermal sensitivity parallels a difference in operating temperatures along the wing.

Abstract

Flight is a demanding form of locomotion, requiring fast activation and relaxation in wing muscles to produce the necessary wingbeat frequencies. Bats maintain high body temperatures during flight, but their wing muscles cool under typical environmental conditions. Because distal wing muscles are colder during flight than proximal muscles, we hypothesized that they would be less temperature sensitive to compensate for temperature effects, resulting in proximal-distal differences in temperature sensitivity that match differences in muscle operating temperature. We measured contractile rates across temperatures in the proximal pectoralis muscle and an interosseous in the handwing of Carollia perspicillata, a small neotropical fruit bat, and compared their thermal dependence with that of a forearm muscle measured in a previous study. We found that the contractile properties of the pectoralis were significantly more temperature sensitive than those of the distal muscles. This suggests that cooling of the distal wing muscles imposes a selective pressure on muscle contractile function which has led to shifts in temperature sensitivity. This study is the first to demonstrate differences in temperature sensitivity along the length of a single limb in an endotherm and suggests that temperature variation may be underappreciated as a determinant of locomotor performance in endotherms generally.