Thermal fatigue resistance of vertebrate bone: A comparative study of endothermic and ectothermic species using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy

In this study, we propose the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in thermal cycling fatigue resistance between the bones of ectothermic and endothermic animals. We performed an experiment to test whether bones of endothermic animals, having potentially lost their ability to adapt to thermal cycling, exhibit reduced resistance to thermal fatigue compared to ectothermic animals, which may have retained this adaptive trait due to their environmental conditions. The change in stiffness was determined using shifts in the resonant peaks of the frequency spectrum obtained from Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy (RUS). To achieve this, samples of compact (cortical) and spongy bone tissue were extracted and polished before undergoing a 29-day period of thermal cycling. The changes in the resonance frequencies were then observed. Changes in resonant frequencies imply corresponding changes in elastic constants. The primary findings indicated that bones from ectothermic species exhibited minimal changes in elastic properties compared to those from endothermic species, as evidenced by the smaller shifts in resonant peak magnitudes following thermal cycling.