When size matters: energy allocation and thermogenic mechanisms in very small mammals, the African pygmy mice
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Thermoregulation is a major challenge for extremely small mammals such as the African pygmy mice Mus mattheyi and Mus minutoides, weighing less than 12 g. A previous study showed that these tiny mice exhibit different mitochondrial energy efficiency for ATP synthesis, with a higher efficiency in M. mattheyi (∼6 g) than in M. minutoides (∼10 g). This result suggests a lower mitochondrial heat production at rest in M. mattheyi, despite its lower body surface and inevitably greater heat loss from its body surface, than in M. minutoides. Consequently, a compensatory thermoregulatory strategy should exist in M. mattheyi to maintain homeothermy. The present study aimed to assess whether M. mattheyi uses non-shivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue (BAT) and/or activity-thermoregulatory heat substitution. For this purpose, multidisciplinary approaches involving behavioral, physiological, biochemical and molecular analyses were used. Mus mattheyi showed higher daily mass-specific energy expenditure and food intake per unit mass and allocated more daily energy to vital function, spent less time moving in their cage during the daytime but exhibited higher non-locomotor activity and higher movement-related energy cost compared with M. minutoides. BAT of M. mattheyi was metabolically more active, exhibiting higher mitochondrial respiration rates and citrate synthase activity than in M. minutoides, but lower uncoupling protein 1 content. Altogether, these results suggest that the tiny M. mattheyi mainly uses non-exercise activity thermogenesis, increased cost of movement and, to a lesser extent, BAT non-shivering thermogenesis for remaining warm.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".