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Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol 204, Issue 9 1667-1672, Copyright © 2001 by Company of Biologists

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Seasonal change in the capacity for supercooling by neonatal painted turtles

GC Packard, MJ Packard and LL McDaniel
Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA. packard@lamar.colostate.edu

Hatchlings of the North American painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) typically spend their first winter of life inside the shallow, subterranean nest where they completed incubation the preceding summer. This facet of their natural history commonly causes neonates in northerly populations to be exposed in mid-winter to ice and cold, which many animals survive by remaining unfrozen and supercooled. We measured the limit of supercooling in samples of turtles taken shortly after hatching and in other samples after 2 months of acclimation (or acclimatization) to a reduced temperature in the laboratory or field. Animals initially had only a limited capacity for supercooling, but they acquired an ability to undergo deeper supercooling during the course of acclimation. The gut of most turtles was packed with particles of soil and eggshell shortly after hatching, but not after acclimation. Thus, the relatively high limit of supercooling for turtles in the days immediately after hatching may have resulted from the ingestion of soil (and associated nucleating agents) by the animals as they were freeing themselves from their eggshell, whereas the relatively low limit of supercooling attained by acclimated turtles may have resulted from their purging their gut of its contents. Parallels may, therefore, exist between the natural-history strategy expressed by hatchling painted turtles and that expressed by numerous terrestrial arthropods that withstand the cold of winter by sustaining a state of supercooling.
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This article has been cited by other articles:


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G. C. Packard and M. J. Packard
To freeze or not to freeze: adaptations for overwintering by hatchlings of the North American painted turtle
J. Exp. Biol., September 1, 2004; 207(17): 2897 - 2906.
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 J. Exp. Biol.Home page
J. P. Costanzo, P. J. Baker, S. A. Dinkelacker, and R. E. Lee Jr
Endogenous and exogenous ice-nucleating agents constrain supercooling in the hatchling painted turtle
J. Exp. Biol., February 1, 2003; 206(3): 477 - 485.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2001