Cardiorespiratory responses of the woodchuck and porcupine to CO2 and hypoxia

Summary The burrow-dwelling woodchuck (Marmota monax) (mean body wt.=4.45±1 kg) was compared to a similar-sized (5.87±1.5 kg) but arboreal rodent, the porcupine (Erithrizon dorsatum), in terms of its ventilatory and heart rate responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia, and its blood characteristics.V_T,f,T_I andT_E were measured by whole-body plethysmography in four awake individuals of each species. The woodchuck has a longerT_E/T_TOT (0.76±0.03) than the porcupine (0.61±0.03). The woodchuck had a higher threshold and significantly smaller slope to its CO₂ ventilatory response compared to the porcupine, but showed no difference in its hypoxic ventilatory response. The woodchuck P₅₀ of 27.8 was hardly different from the porcupine value of 30.7, but the Bohr factor, –0.72, was greater than the porcupine's, –0.413. The woodchuck breathing air has PaCO₂=48 (±2) torr, PaO₂=72 (±6), pHa=7.357 (±0.01); the porcupine blood gases are PaCO₂=34.6 (±2.8), PaO₂=94.9 (±5), pHa=7.419 (±0.03), suggesting a difference in PaCO₂/pH set points. The woodchuck exhibited no reduction in heart rate with hypoxia, nor did it have the low normoxic heart rate observed in other burrowing mammals.