ABSTRACT
Vertebrates utilize various respiratory organs such as gills, lungs and skin in combination with diverse cardiovascular structures, including single-, three- and four-chambered hearts, to enable oxygen delivery and carbon dioxide removal. They also exhibit differences in aerobic and anaerobic metabolism during exertion, but the cardiorespiratory gas transport of all vertebrates is a four-step process governed by Fick's Principle and Fick's Law of Diffusion over the entire range of metabolic rates. Hillman et al. (2013) suggested that previous exercise studies have focused too narrowly on mammals and proposed that the cardiorespiratory system's excess capacity serves an evolutionary role in enhancing CO2 excretion in non-mammalian vertebrates. In contrast, an analysis by Hicks and Wang (2021) concluded that vertebrates maintain effective gas exchange even at peak activity, finding no evidence of arterial hypercapnia at maximal oxygen consumption and thus challenging the proposal of significant limitations to pulmonary or branchial CO2 efflux. In the present study, we investigated the limits for CO2 exchange in exercising American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) and provide evidence that the cardiorespiratory system is adequately built to sustain CO2 excretion during strenuous exercise and maintain arterial PCO2, with no evidence of diffusion limitation for pulmonary CO2 excretion.
Footnotes
Author contributions
Conceptualization: J.L.C., R.E., D.A.C., T.W., J.W.H.; Methodology: J.L.C., D.A.C., T.W., J.W.H.; Validation: D.A.C.; Formal analysis: J.L.C., D.A.C.; Investigation: D.A.C., T.W., J.W.H.; Resources: R.E., D.A.C.; Data curation: D.A.C.; Writing - original draft: D.A.C., T.W., J.W.H.; Writing - review & editing: J.L.C., R.E., D.A.C., T.W., J.W.H.; Supervision: D.A.C., J.W.H.; Project administration: D.A.C.; Funding acquisition: D.A.C.
Funding
Funding for the project was provided to D.A.C. II by the National Science Foundation OS 1755187.
Data availability
All data will be provided upon reasonable request.
