Which risk sharply increases when a hibernating groundhog's core body temperature rises above the minimum torpor threshold?

💡 Explanation

When a groundhog's core temperature rises during hibernation, metabolic rate increases due to enzymatic reaction acceleration, leading to heightened energy expenditure, specifically from stored brown fat by uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). Therefore brown fat reserve depletion results, rather than exhaustion, arrest, or atrophy which involve other conditions and different physiological processes.

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