Oxidative cost of breathing in the turtle Chrysemys picta bellii

We estimated the cost of breathing of turtles by measuring ventilation and oxygen consumption during air breathing and CO2 breathing. We assumed that any increment in oxygen consumption due to hypercapnic hyperpnea was due to the metabolic cost of the increased breathing. Six turtles were studied while breathing air and then 5% CO2 in air after at least 12 h breathing each gas. For the measurements, the turtles were submerged unrestrained in water at 20 degrees C and were free to raise their heads into a ventilated chamber. Tidal volumes were measured by the pressure changes in the chamber, and oxygen consumption was measured by conventional open-circuit respirometry. Ventilation increased markedly during CO2 breathing up to 50 times the control level, but oxygen consumption increased only slightly. Assuming no depression in nonventilatory metabolism, our data indicate an oxidative cost of breathing on the order of 1% of the total metabolic rate at rest. This is far less than the 15-20% cost predicted from published work (Kinney et al., Respir. Physiol. 31: 327-332, 1976) on a closely related species of turtle and is consistent with earlier work in our laboratory. We conclude that the cost of breathing in turtles is low, similar to other air-breathing vertebrates, and therefore the existing notion that turtle breathing is expensive and inefficient should be discarded.