The Journal of Experimental Biology 207, 3477-3482 3477 Published by The Company of Biologists 2004 doi:10.1242/jeb.01168 The role of discontinuous gas exchange in insects: the chthonic hypothesis does not hold water Allen G. Gibbs1,* and Robert A. Johnson2 1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 1041 E. Lowell Street, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA and 2School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501, USA *Author for correspondence (e-mail:
[email protected]) Accepted 29 June 2004 Summary Insects breathe through valved openings (spiracles) in the chthonic hypothesis by simultaneously measuring their cuticle. Many insects open and close their spiracles in water loss and CO2 release in reproductive females a cyclic pattern (discontinuous gas-exchange cycles, or (queens) of the seed-harvester ant Pogonomyrmex DGC). These cycles were observed over half a century ago, barbatus, a burrowing species from North American their hypothesized function being to minimize loss of deserts. Queens used one of three patterns of gas water from the tracheal system. However, numerous exchange, discontinuous, cyclic and continuous. We recent studies have found that respiration accounts for a resolved the problem of separating cuticular transpiration small fraction of total water loss, and that insects stop and respiratory water loss for individuals that used performing DGC at times when this pattern would be continuous gas exchange by developing a regression most useful. Thus, the importance of cyclic gas exchange method that can be used across all patterns of gas for water conservation has been challenged. The leading exchange. The ratio of respiratory water loss to CO2 alternative is the chthonic hypothesis, which proposes that release did not differ among ants using different patterns DGC originated in insects from hypercapnic (high CO2) of gas exchange, in contrast to the expectation of the environments (e.g.