researcher studying sleeping pandas and pandas at play reveal that these mostly herbivorous bears do n’t actually have exceptionally low metabolic rates – unlike the mode they ’re portray . Temperature , and not bamboo , will be the limiting cistron in their successful reintroduction , agree to new finding publish inScientific Reportsthis calendar week .
Reintroducing intent titan panda bear ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca ) into the wild is a major end . But can their appetite be patronise out there in nature reserves ? barbarian heavyweight pandas deplete 13.1 to 14.6 kilo ( 29 to 32.2 Irish punt ) of bamboo farewell and halt a day , or 43.7 kilograms ( 96.3 pounds ) of shoot a day . During the eighties , part of China suffer a large - scale bamboo dice - off . And while the crisis has since sink , researchers miss sufficient cognition of panda physiological ecology to ascertain their requirements for selection now – and in the face of close at hand climate change .
A team moderate by Drexel University ’s James Spotila and Zhihe Zhang from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding ( Panda Base ) want to see if current bamboo resources were sufficient for adding extra pandas to universe in lifelike reserve . So they measured the active and resting metabolic rate of several giant pandas at the Panda Base in Sichuan Province , China , during the summertime and winter seasons .
The squad found that bear cat active metabolic rate were in the normal range , and their resting metabolism is just below average for mammals of their size of it . It was just a petty lower than seal of approval , deer , pasang , and kangaroos . Previous work put their day-by-day energy expenditure at only 37.7 percent of prefigure values based on size of it . That mean there ’s enough bamboo in natural reserve to support both natural universe and large numbers of reintroduced pandas – at least until climate warming upsets their ecosystem . And even if bamboo does n’t limit the achiever of panda reintroduction , the effect of temperature on the pandas themselves might .
Giant panda could get heat tenseness if temperatures rise above 25 ° deoxycytidine monophosphate ( 77 ° F ) . " They have to hold out at temperatures below that to stay respectable , " Spotila explain in astatement . " In nature , they actively search out coolheaded areas ( microhabitats ) in summer and move to high top to avoid heating . "
