BIOL 2060 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Torpor, Shrew, Thermoregulation
22 Sep 2017
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Document Summary
The mechanisms that organism use to maintain their heat balance area affected by the surface area: volume ratio (surface area/volume) Larger shapes have a lower sa:v ratio (more skin is losing heat, working hard to keep their body temp) The compactness of an organism describes its metabolism. Metabolism is higher when small only on a per gram basis. Metabolic rate is related to mass, with larger individuals expend less energy per unit weight than smaller individuals. Shrew has a high sa:v ratio, elephant has a. Organisms from cooler climates tend to have larger bodies and smaller surface-to-volume ratios than individual of the same species from warmer climates. Describes how much energy an organism must expand to stay in their thermal neutral zone. Cost to being small when cold; losing heat too fast. Cost to being large when hot; retaining heat. Birds larger in temperate than tropical regions, mostly in winter. In summer, movement of migratory species into the temperate zone.
