A state of prolonged, extreme metabolic slowdown some animals enter to survive a season when food is scarce and temperatures are low, dramatically reducing heart rate, breathing rate and body temperature to conserve energy for weeks or months at a stretch. True hibernators such as ground squirrels can drop their body temperature to near freezing and their heart rate to only a few beats per minute; bears undergo a related but shallower state, sometimes called denning or carnivore lethargy, in which body temperature falls only a few degrees and the animal can rouse comparatively quickly, a distinction physiologists still debate the right dividing line for. Hibernation is a different strategy from migration, which avoids a harsh season by leaving rather than sleeping through it, though both solve the same underlying problem of surviving a period when an environment cannot support the population that thrives there the rest of the year.
Facts
PeriodicitySeasonal: typically one extended winter bout per year in temperate and polar true hibernators. 1 ScaleOrganismal, an individual physiological state, though common enough across a population to shape the annual food and activity cycle of the whole population. 1 First DescribedAmerican naturalist Peter A. Browne gave the earliest formal scientific definition of hibernation in an 1847 tract, describing it as a natural, temporary, intermediate state between life and death that some animals enter under conditions of extreme heat, cold, drought or oxygen deprivation. The word itself is said to have first appeared in print in 1816, credited to German naturalist Lorenz Oken. 2 Connections
Associated With
Source Hibernation (Wikipedia)
Demonstrated By
Alpine, Biomes Marmots and other alpine mammals hibernate through the long, harsh winter above the tree line.
Source Alpine Biome (Blue Planet Biomes)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. How Animals Learned to Hibernate and Why We Cant Do It (Yet) (Aeon)
Aeon Media GroupOpening sectionQuote, Opening section
At the dawn of scientific enquiry into hibernation (from the Latin hibernus, pertaining to winter) in the mid-19th century, it was defined by Peter A Browne in an 1847 tract as a natural, temporary, intermediate state, between life and death.
Hibernation (Wikipedia)
Lead section
Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic reduction entered by some animal species.
Bears section
Historically it was unclear whether or not bears truly hibernate, since they experience only a modest decline in body temperature of 3 to 5 °C (5 to 9 °F), compared with the much larger decreases (often 32 °C (60 °F) or more) seen in other hibernators.
Lead section, energy conservation sentence
Hibernation functions to conserve energy when sufficient food is not available.
Lead section, heterothermy sentence
Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate.
Associated With: Migration, Evolution of hibernation section, In endothermic animals subsection
This is a very similar mechanism to the evolution of insect migration, where instead of bodily functions like metabolism getting paired with seasonal indicators, movement patterns would be paired with seasonal indicators.
View the SourceAlpine Biome (Blue Planet Biomes)
Blue Planet BiomesDemonstrated By: Alpine, blueplanetbiomes.org/alpine.php, animal adaptations sectionQuote, Demonstrated By: Alpine, blueplanetbiomes.org/alpine.php, animal adaptations section
Alpine animals adapt to the cold by hibernating, migrating to lower, warmer areas, or insulating their bodies with layers of fat.
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