1. Understanding the ecology and evolution of wildlife and domesticated species requires knowledge of their physiological responses to environmental change and the constraints under which they operate. However, whole animal experiments are often limited in sample size and can be logistically and ethically challenging. Culture techniques represent a powerful approach, but are used infrequently in field research due to practical constraints. We used minimal tissue culture equipment in a remote field site for in vitro explant experiments using blubber from wild grey seals Halichoerus grypus. Assessing explant viability and detecting microbial contamination in remote field sites, where facilities are often small, unspecialised and more vulnerable to bacterial or fungal infection, present major challenges.
2. We investigated whether oxygen-sensitive planar optodes (OSPO) in closed system respirometry could be used to assess oxygen consumption by blubber explants from suckling and fasting wild seal pups as a proxy for viability. We also explored whether OSPOs could provide rapid information on whole animal relevant physiological metrics by determining whether explant oxygen consumption correlated with the nutritional state of the animal, blubber depth and other tissue metabolic properties, including glucose uptake, lactate production and lipolysis.
3. Vials containing blubber explants consumed significant amounts of oxygen compared to controls, showing tissues were metabolically active. Oxygen consumption differed between nutritional states and blubber tissue depth. These differences were reflected in other tissue metabolic properties. Dissolved oxygen levels remained consistent over 24 hr in 94% of control vials containing only culture media. In 6% of control vials extremely rapid oxygen consumption preceded, by 2–3 days, colour changes in the phenol-red containing media that indicate lactic acidosis from microbial metabolic activity.
4. Oxygen use in control vials was, therefore, an effective monitoring system that provided vital early warning of media contamination, allowing stocks to be discarded, which prevented erroneous results and avoided waste of valuable field time and irreplaceable samples. OSPO are thus a useful tool for simultaneously assessing tissue oxygen consumption, investigating functional physiological differences and monitoring microbiological contamination in culture experiments, particularly in field laboratories studying live tissues from wildlife.

中文翻译：

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生命迹象：氧气传感器确认生存能力，测量耗氧量并为现场组织培养提供快速、有效的污染监测

1. 了解野生动物和驯养物种的生态和进化需要了解它们对环境变化的生理反应以及它们在何种条件下运行的限制。然而，整个动物实验的样本量通常有限，并且在逻辑和伦理上都具有挑战性。培养技术代表了一种强大的方法，但由于实际限制，在实地研究中很少使用。我们在偏远的现场使用最少的组织培养设备进行体外外植体实验，使用来自野生灰海豹Halichoerus grypus 的鲸脂。评估外植体活力和检测偏远现场的微生物污染是一项重大挑战，这些地方的设施通常较小、不专业且更容易受到细菌或真菌感染。
2. 我们研究了封闭系统呼吸测量中的氧敏感平面光极 (OSPO) 是否可用于评估来自哺乳和禁食的野生海豹幼崽的鲸脂外植体的耗氧量，作为生存力的代表。我们还通过确定外植体耗氧量是否与动物的营养状态、脂肪深度和其他组织代谢特性（包括葡萄糖摄取、乳酸产生和脂肪分解）相关，探索了 OSPO 是否可以提供有关整个动物相关生理指标的快速信息。
3. 与对照组相比，含有鲸脂外植体的小瓶消耗了大量氧气，表明组织具有代谢活性。营养状态和脂肪组织深度之间的耗氧量不同。这些差异反映在其他组织代谢特性中。在 94% 仅含有培养基的对照小瓶中，溶解氧水平在 24 小时内保持一致。在 6% 的对照小瓶中，氧气消耗极快，在 2-3 天之前，含酚红的培养基颜色发生变化，表明微生物代谢活动导致乳酸酸中毒。
4. 因此，控制瓶中的氧气使用是一种有效的监测系统，可提供培养基污染的重要早期预警，允许丢弃库存，从而防止错误结果并避免浪费宝贵的现场时间和不可替代的样品。因此，OSPO 是同时评估组织耗氧量、研究功能生理差异和监测培养实验中的微生物污染的有用工具，特别是在研究野生动物活组织的现场实验室中。