{"id":134927,"date":"2022-01-30T08:23:21","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T16:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/how-gut-microbe-symbiosis-helps-squirrels-keep-their-muscles-during-hibernation"},"modified":"2022-01-30T08:23:21","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T16:23:21","slug":"how-gut-microbe-symbiosis-helps-squirrels-keep-their-muscles-during-hibernation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/how-gut-microbe-symbiosis-helps-squirrels-keep-their-muscles-during-hibernation","title":{"rendered":"How Gut Microbe Symbiosis Helps Squirrels Keep Their Muscles During Hibernation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-gut-microbe-symbiosis-helps-squirrels-keep-their-muscles-during-hibernation2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ground squirrels spend the end of summer gorging on food, preparing for hibernation. They need to store a lot of energy as fat, which becomes their primary fuel source underground in their hibernation burrows all winter long.<\/p>\n<p>While hibernating, ground squirrels enter <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/brv.12137\">a state called torpor<\/a>. Their metabolism drops to as low as just 1 percent of summer levels and their body temperature can <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1152\/physrev.00008.2003\">plummet to close to freezing<\/a>. Torpor greatly reduces how much energy the animal needs to stay alive until springtime.<\/p>\n<p>That long fast comes with a downside: no new input of protein, which is crucial to maintain the body\u2019s tissues and organs. This is a particular problem for muscles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ground squirrels spend the end of summer gorging on food, preparing for hibernation. They need to store a lot of energy as fat, which becomes their primary fuel source underground in their hibernation burrows all winter long. While hibernating, ground squirrels enter a state called torpor. Their metabolism drops to as low as just 1 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}