1. 1. Badgers, marmots, white-tailed prairie dogs, black-tailed prairie dogs, Wyoming ground squirrels, thirteen-lined ground squirrels and laboratory rats were monitored for their urea hydrolyzing ability by gut bacterial urease during periods of food availability and food deprivation. 2. 2. There did not appear to be a correlation between an animal's ability to hibernate and to expire 14CO2 from hydrolyzed 14C-urea injected intraperitoneally. 3. 3. In addition, fasting and water deprivation (characteristic of hibernation hypothermic bouts) resulted in a decrease in urea hydrolysis by all species except for the rat. It is speculated that urea hydrolysis may be more directly related to gut bacterial biomass or pH regulation during [...]
