Animal Physiology-Environment

Question 1

What 3 processes does tissue temperature affect?

Answer 1

Enzyme-substrate affinity, catalytic rate and membrane fluidity

Question 2

What do the following terms mean?
Homeothermy
Poikilothermy
Endothermy
Ectothermy

Answer 2

Homeothermy= Body temp. remains constant
Poikilothermy= opposite; Body temp. fluctuates with environment
Endothermy= Body heat is derived from metabolism
Ectothermy= Body heat is derived from the environment

e.g Mammals are endotherm homeotherms
Hummingbirds are endotherm and poikilotherms (can make their own heat but at night allow temp to drop to environmental temp)

Question 3

What cost is there to being homeothermic (like mammals)?

Answer 3

High energy cost-> greatly increases food requirement

Sometimes costs are too high so methods such as hibernation are adopted

Question 4

What is the basal metabolic rate (BMR)?

Answer 4

The basal metabolic rate (BMR) is defined as the metabolic rate of an animal, in the thermoneutral zone, that is neither digesting food nor engaged in reproduction or growth (basically just to stay alive)

Question 5

What is the resting metabolic rate (RMR)?

Answer 5

The resting metabolic rate (RMR) incorporates all of these requirements except that the animal need not be postabsorptive or in the thermoneutral zone (easier to measure as animal can be digesting food etc)

Question 6

What is the thermoneutral zone?

Answer 6

A range of ambient temperatures in which the animal does not need to utilise energy to maintain its body temp

-The lowest ambient temperature in the TNZ is termed the lower-critical temperature
-The highest ambient temperature in the TNZ is the upper critical-temperature
(These just depend on species + their size, bigger animals have a bigger range)

Question 7

What happens to the resting metabolic rate when ambient temperature drops below or above the TNZ critical values?

Answer 7

The RMR increases as it actively tries to adjust body temp (cool itself down or warm itself up)

Question 8

Dry heat transfer is the process of transferring heat without evaporation. What are the 3 processes in which this can be achieved?

Answer 8

Convection (e.g wind), Conduction (e.g ground) and Radiation (electromagnetic radiation)

Question 9

What does the rate of dry heat transfer depend on?

Answer 9

Body temp (Tb) and Ambient temp (Ta), so if body temp is v. high and the ambient temp is low, the rate will be high. The difference between the temps is called the driving force

Question 10

The polimotor response is part of a regulation mechanism to ensure an animal does not lose heat when the ambient temp drops (still within TNZ). Describe how it does this.

Answer 10

Hairs or feathers are erected by the arrector pili muscles under the sympathetic nervous system to form a layer where air is trapped to increase resistance against heat transfer

Question 11

The postural response is part of a regulation mechanism to ensure an animal does not lose heat when the ambient temp drops (still within TNZ). Describe how it does this.

Answer 11

Animals position themselves to reduce the surface area exposed to the environment. E.g Possums curl up when cold. Penguins huddle together to achieve this result. Vultures also do this.

Question 12

Blood flow is also used as a mechanism of maintaining body temp (still within TNZ). in cold environments. How?

Answer 12

Vasoconstriction keeps warm blood near the core of the body instead of at the surface of the skin. The opposite to this is vasodilation. Ears are often interesting in studying this due to their small mass to surface area ratio,

Question 13

When the ambient temp drops below TNZ, thermogenic mechanisms are used to make heat from metabolism. Explain how shivering is a thermogenic mechanism.

Answer 13

Shivering is when the autonomous system activates groups of antagonistic skeletal muscles to contract. This causes hydrolysis of ATP to provide energy for the shivering. The energy is released as heat

Question 14

What is involved in non-shivering thermogenesis?

Answer 14

Brown adipose tissue dissipates heat. It is mostly found in small mammals but is found in young larger mammals.. Protons move into the mitochondrial matrix via a uncoupling protein and this produces heat. This is all regulated by the hypothalamus

Question 15

If ambient temp increases above TNZ, sweating and panting can be used to cool down. How does sweating work?

Answer 15

Sweat is lost through sweat ducts onto the skin surface increasing the rate of cutaneous evaporation by a factor of 50 or more by wetting the surface of the skin. Sweat is a saline solution therefore prolonged sweating can cause a significant depletion in the body’s pool of NA+ and Cl-.
Secretion by the sweat glands is activated by the sympathetic nervous system

Question 16

How does panting work?

Answer 16

It increases the rate of evaporative cooling because water evaporates from the warm moist membranes lining the respiratory tract into the air that is breathed out
-Advantage to panting is that no salts are lost– only pure water vapour leaves the body however due to muscular effort requires energy leading to heat production

-Also can induce respiratory alkalosis – an elevation of the pH of the body fluids caused by excessive removal of carbon dioxide

Question 17

Why do pigs ‘wallow’?

Answer 17

Wallowing is the act of rolling around in the mud to cool down. Pigs are prone to over-heating due to few and inactive sweat glands, large insulation layer and high body mass to surface area ratio. The cooling effect lasts much longer than if just water was used

Question 18

What is Vasomotor index?

Answer 18

How well an animal can control loss of body temp to its surroundings (positive correlation between VMI and body size)

Question 19

Small mammals have a low VMI so keeping warm may be energetically expensive. What do they do to overcome this?

Answer 19

Hibernation or torpor (allowing body temp drop in a controlled manner)

Question 20

How is hibernation and daily torpor similar and how do they differ?

Answer 20

Animals that exhibit one of these behaviours allow their body temp to drop to close to ambient temp for certain torpor bouts (lengths of time)

Hibernation: close to 10 degrees for several days/weeks
Daily Torpor: between 10-25 degrees for less than 24h

Question 21

Does hibernation consist of one long continuous bout or several?

Answer 21

Several. The animal undergoes many bouts (raises its body temp back up to normal temp then back down again) throughout hibernation for a number of reasons; eliminate waste, food collecting, look out for predators, immune system activation.

Question 22

By what percentage reduction of metabolic rate, ventilation rate and heart rate does a hibernating dormouse undergo?

Answer 22

98.8%, 99.4%, 97.4%- this happens rapidly during the first few hours of hibernation- proves that it saves energy

Question 23

What may stimulate/trigger the commencement of hibernation?

Answer 23

Arrival of cold weather, accumulation of fat, circannual rhythm, lack of food

Question 24

What is the difference between a facultative hibernator and an obligatory hibernator?

Answer 24

Facultative hibernators do it in response to environmental conditions- e.g water or food shortage- hamster

Obligatory hibernators do it as a response to an annual cycle which is under physiological control (melatonin)- e.g squirrels

Question 25

Melatonin plays an important role in hibernation. How?

Answer 25

It indicates when winter is coming due to shortening days. As they shorten, melatonin increases until hibernation is entered. It then drops back down until just prior to an interbout (when the animal heats up temporarily). This also links to the use of brown fat as this is used to warm the animal back up in these periods so the breakdown of the fat is activated by melatonin

Question 26

What is a bi-product of metabolism?

Answer 26

Free radicals- highly reactive molecules with an unequal balance of charges so can cause damage to cells

Question 27

How can melatonin affect free radicals and how is this beneficial to the animal?

Answer 27

Melatonin is an anti-oxidant so can readily donate electrons to free radicals to stabilise them and prevent oxidative damage to cells

Question 28

What two types of food hibernators are there?

Answer 28

Fat-storing- rely on lipid hydrolysis derived from white adipose tissue as fuel source- e.g squirrels

Food-storing- used cached food that is ingested during interbouts- e.g hamsters and chipmunks

Question 29

What morphological changed are seen in fat-storing hibernators such as squirrels?

Answer 29

Villi in the small intestine undergo villous atrophy- this reduction in the size of the villi which decreases nutrient absorption. There is also a reduction in protein synthesis and digestive enzymes. This does not happen in food-storing hibernators as they still need to be able to digest food quickly

Question 30

What happens to levels of renal function and immune responses during hibernation and interbout arousal?

Answer 30

They are greatly reduced (especially renal function in larger animals) during hibernation but elevated again during interbout periods

Question 31

What happens to CNS activity during hibernation?

Answer 31

Must continue despite reduction in electrical and metabolic activit.It regulates maintenance of a set body temp, cardiac rhythm and respiratory. In addition, the animal should still be sensitive to external stimuli such as light, temp and touch

Question 32

What happens to adipose tissue during hibernation?

Answer 32

Both WAT and BAT must remain responsive and retain function at the low Tb values of torpor

WAT is the dominant metabolic fuel throughout the hibernation

BAT is also responsible for the heat generation that maintains Tb when decreases in Ta

Question 33

Does the black bear hibernate?

Answer 33

It does drop its temperature (not very much) however this is not true hibernation and is simply termed ‘winter sleep’

Question 34

Siberian hamsters save energy by exhibiting daily torpor, how does this save energy?

Answer 34

Reduces energy intake requirements and this means less time spent foraging which uses a lot of energy (the longer the bout, the bigger the energy saving) but remember that daily torpor does not cause rates to drop as low as hibernating animals

Question 35

What is aestivation?

Answer 35

A state of torpor that is associated with lack of food and high environmental temperatures. Fish, reptiles, amphibians and some small mammals exhibit this. It allows survival of animals through long dry seasons (arid conditions): 9-10 months of a year

Question 36

How can direct calorimetry measure energy use?

Answer 36

A method in which the animal is in a chamber surrounded by two chambers of water and the temperature of the water is measured. This gives an indication of the total heat loss which is proportional to the energy used

It can also be done with how much frozen ice is melted and collected

Question 37

How can indirect respirometry measure energy use?

Answer 37

The animal is enclosed within the respirometer which contains soda lime - a CO2 absorbent and drying agent. The respirometer is sealed and a fixed volume of oxygen is introduced. Expired carbon dioxide and water are absorbed and thus the time taken for chamber pressure to return to its initial value indicates the rate of oxygen consumption by the animal (which indicates energy use)

Question 38

How do you work out Heat production?

Answer 38

Heat production = C (body temperature (TB)) – ambient temperature (TA))

Question 39

How do you work out basal metabolic rate?

Answer 39

BMR = 3.8 MB 0.75 (MB in kg)