Metabolic sources of energy for hummingbird flight.

It has been known for some two decades that hovering flight in hummingbirds is the most energetically expensive muscle work known among vertebrates, but the metabolic support for such work has never been clarified. Measurement of the maximum activities of key enzymes of carbohydrate, fat, and amino acid catabolism in flight muscle and heart of rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) reveals that the high ATP requirements of short-term hovering flight can only be supported by the oxidation of carbohydrate. Fat oxidation can support a substantially lower maximum rate of ATP turnover, indicating that this process can power only the lower +.++energetic requirements of long-term forward or migratory flight. Mitochondria isolated from flight muscle oxidize pyruvate and palmitoyl-CoA equally well. The inhibition of pyruvate oxidation by palmitoyl-CoA oxidation provides a mechanism by which fat oxidation inhibits carbohydrate oxidation in the transition from short- to long-term flight.