For many animals, color change is a critical adaptive mechanism believed to carry a substantial energetic cost. Yet, no study to date has directly measured the energy expenditure associated with this process. We examined the metabolic cost of color change in octopuses by measuring oxygen consumption in samples of excised octopus skin during periods of chromatophore expansion and contraction and then modeled metabolic demand over the whole octopus as a function of octopus mass. The metabolic demand of the fully activated chromatophore system is nearly as great as an octopus’s resting metabolic rate. This high metabolic cost carries ecological and evolutionary implications, including selective pressures in octopuses that may influence the adoption of nocturnal lifestyles, the use of dens, the reduction of the chromatophore system in deep-sea species, and metabolic trade-offs associated with foraging.

中文翻译：

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章鱼颜色变化的高能量成本


对于许多动物来说，颜色变化是一种关键的适应机制，被认为会带来巨大的能量消耗。然而，迄今为止还没有研究直接测量与此过程相关的能量消耗。我们通过测量染色团膨胀和收缩期间切除的章鱼皮肤样本的耗氧量来检查章鱼颜色变化的代谢成本，然后将整个章鱼的代谢需求建模为章鱼质量的函数。完全激活的染色团系统的代谢需求几乎与章鱼的静息代谢率一样大。这种高代谢成本具有生态和进化影响，包括章鱼的选择压力，这可能会影响夜间生活方式的采用、巢穴的使用、深海物种染色团系统的减少以及与觅食相关的代谢权衡。