Forced and voluntary diving in ducks: cardiovascular adjustments and their control

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Abstract
Diving ducks submerge voluntarily for less than 1 min yet, in forced dives in the laboratory, redhead ducks can endure at least 8 min underwater. This is much longer than a dabbling duck of the same body mass can endure and is a result of the quicker onset of oxygen-conserving cardiovascular responses in divers. Oxygen conservation during forced dives is indicated by a profound bradycardia as blood flow is restricted to cerebral and central cardiovascular areas. In voluntary dives, on the other hand, heart rate is frequently above resting rates, and blood flow is preferentially directed to the working muscles of the hind limbs. Profound bradycardia only occurs in unrestrained ducks when they are trapped underwater. Since leg movements cease within 30 s after ducks are trapped, blood flow must at that time be directed away from the working muscles, as in the "classical" oxygen-conserving dive response. Cardiovascular adjustments to forced diving are caused by stimulation of nasal receptors in diving ducks. In dabblers, arterial chemoreceptor stimulation is crucial to the response, although an intact barostatic system may be necessary for development of profound bradycardia. Baroreceptors are essential for the cardiac response observed when dabblers are trained to dive for food, although neither baro-, chemo-, nor naso-receptors appear to have much to do with the cardiac adjustments to voluntary submergence in diving ducks. Nevertheless, in divers, cardiac adjustments to dabbling and forced, voluntary, and trapped dives are linearly related on a plot of dive (trapped) against the logarithm of predive (pretrap) heart rate. This relationship is due to a similar increase in vagal activity, of some 50% of maximum, in all types of diving manoeuvers. Phychogenic factors, long thought to be important in cardiac responses to forced diving, would appear to underpin this relationship.

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