Data from: Urbanization-driven climate change increases invertebrate lipid demand, relative to protein—a response to dehydration

1. Climatic change alters not only animal energy balance, but also water
balance, but this latter topic has received less attention. Water can be
obtained through consumption of moist food and metabolism of dry food. The
breakdown of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins can produce metabolic
water. Metabolism of lipids produces large amounts of water, whereas
excretion of nitrogenous waste related to protein metabolism requires
water losses. 2. Here we tested the hypothesis that climatic shifts
associated with urbanization influences animal lipid demand relative to
protein, due to shifts in water balance. 3. We placed artificial diets
high in lipid or protein, and either with or without supplemented water,
at 16 pairs of sites along an urbanization gradient in Toledo, OH, USA. 4.
Lipid consumption, relative to protein, increased with urbanization and
mean temperature, but water supplementation reduced the magnitude of this
association. Ants were ~50% of the observed consumers. 5. These results
suggest that shifts in nutritional demand with climatic change are
partially predictable from physiological first principles related to water
balance and nutrient metabolism. Because ants and other arthropods play
key roles in many food webs and ecosystems, increased demand for lipids
with urbanization or climate change could have major consequences for
ecosystem services (e.g. urban waste removal, seed predation). Overall,
our results suggest that warming related to urbanization increases animal
demand for lipids, in part to maintain water balance, and this could have
important implications for both animal health and ecosystem services.