Surviving winter on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: Pikas suppress energy demands and exploit yak feces to survive winter
John R. Speakman, Qing‐Sheng Chi, Łukasz Ołdakowski, Haibo Fu, Quinn E. Fletcher, Catherine Hambly, Jacques Togo, Xinyu Liu, Stuart B. Piertney, Xinghao Wang, Liangzhi Zhang, Paula Redman, Lu Wang, Gang-Bin Tang, Yongguo Li, Jianguo Cui, Peter J. Thomson, Zengli Wang, Paula Glover, Olivia C. Robertson, Yanming Zhang, Dehua Wang
Abstract
Significance Endothermic animals must survive periods of seasonally lowered temperature, coincident with lowered food supply. While we know much about hibernation and migration as survival strategies, the responses of nonhibernating, nonmigrating species are more opaque, yet how these animals survive such periods is important to understand their potential susceptibility to climate change. Here, we report on a 13-y study of a species of lagomorph (plateau pika) from the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We show pikas suppress their metabolism in winter and exploit a novel food source (feces of its supposed competitor, the domestic yak), which may contribute to their survival. Deposition of a fat store in the fall and its progressive utilization was not part of the overwinter strategy.