Food ingestion and water turnover in hummingbirds: How much dietary water is absorbed?

Hummingbirds are specialized nectarivores that feed on dilute solutions of sugars with trace amounts of amino acids and electrolytes. Their diets cont ain excess water that, if absorbed, must be eliminated. It has been hypothe sized that in hummingbirds only a small fraction of this dietary water may be absorbed in the intestine. Here, we report the results of experiments de signed to examine the relationship between nectar intake and water turnover in hummingbirds. Our results also allow the estimation of water absorption across the intestine and therefore test the hypothesis that ingested water in hummingbirds passes largely unabsorbed through the gastrointestinal tra ct. We found that fractional and total water turnover increased linearly wi th water ingestion. At low sucrose concentrations, food intake rates betwee n four and five times body mass per 12 h were not unusual. A simple mass-ba lance model suggested that 78 % of ingested water was absorbed in the gastr ointestinal tract and hence must be processed by the kidneys. However, frac tional water absorption was variable and did not appear to be correlated wi th food or water intake parameters, Our results do not lend support to the hypothesis that the bulk of dietary water passes through the intestine unab sorbed. Although hummingbird kidneys appear well suited to excrete large vo lumes of dilute urine, rates of energy assimilation in hummingbirds may be constrained by excess water elimination when these birds are feeding on nec tars with a low sugar concentration.