Chapter 1 - Animals and Environments

Question 1

Why is physiology important to humans?

Answer 1

Key discipline for understanding the fundamental biology of all animals, human health and disease, the health and disease of nonhuman animals of importance to human affairs.

Question 2

What is physiology?

Answer 2

The study of animal function - “how animals work”

Question 3

Three examples of physiology at three different levels of organization

Answer 3

Evolution - salmon species differ genetically and the differences increase as the distance between them increases.
Chemistry and physics - animals adhere to the laws of chem and physics, and sometimes take advantage of them; Salmon ATP, extracted from organic molecules is sent to muscles which contract and exert biomechanical forces on the water which propel them through the water.
Ecology - when the fluid environment of salmon changes from salt to freshwater their ion pumps switch from pumping ions inward in freshwater to pumping them outward in seawater.

Question 4

Distinguish the mechanism of a physiological trait from its evolutionary origin (adaptive significance)

Answer 4

Current mechanisms are products of evolution. Light flashes of fire flies function to attract males. Firefly luciferin reacts with ATP to produce luciferin-AMP which reacts with oxygen to emit light. The mechanism is adaptive and the adaptive significance is mate attraction.

Question 5

Mechanistic physiology

Answer 5

Approach to studying physiology that focuses on mechanisms

Question 6

evolutionary physiology

Answer 6

approach of study that focuses on evolutionary origins

Question 7

Comparative physiology

Answer 7

Synthetic study that compares the ways that various animals carry out similar functions

Question 8

environmental physiology

Answer 8

approach that studies how animals respond physiologically to their environmental challenges and conditions

Question 9

Mechanism of homeostasis

Answer 9

(internal condition that’s being maintained) - “the coordinated physiological processes which maintain most of the constant states in the organism.”
-maintaining internal constancy

Question 10

mechanism of negative feedback

Answer 10

(mechanism that permits/maintains homeostasis) - the system opposes deviation of the controlled variable from the set point; synonymous to homeostasis.

Question 11

conformity

Answer 11

An animal that permits its internal and external environment to be equal. Failure of homeostasis, failure to respond.

Question 12

regulators

Answer 12

Maintain an internal environment separate form their external environment.

Question 13

Acute changes

Answer 13

short term changes that individual’s exhibit soon after their environments have changed.

Question 14

Chronic changes

Answer 14

(acclimation/phenotypic plasticity) - long term changes that individual’s display after they’ve been in a new environment for days, weeks, months.

Question 15

evolutionary changes

Answer 15

changes that occur by alteration of gene frequencies over the course of multiple generations in pops in a new environment

Question 16

Three environmental factors that influence physiology w/ examples

Answer 16

Temperature - too low/high animals cannot function and die
Air - in high elevation, air availability is limited. Limits metabolic energy cannot respirate.
Water - in deep water, metabolic energy is limited , cannot respirate.

Question 17

How does an animal’s body size affects its physiological processes?

Answer 17

Scaling - the size of an animal affects many traits. The larger an animal is, the longer their gestation time will be.

Question 18

Comparative method

Answer 18

Approach for examining evolutionary processes - seeks to identify adaptive traits by comparing how a particular function is carried out by related and unrelated species.

Question 19

Lab experiments

Answer 19

approach for examining evolutionary processes - changes in gene frequencies can be studied

Question 20

study of genetic structures

Answer 20

approach for examining evolutionary processes - clines are a progressive change in allele frequencies or gene controlled phenotype frequencies along an environmental gradient.

Question 21

phylogenetic reconstruction

Answer 21

approach for examining evolutionary processes - making family trees based on molecular genetic data

Question 22

adaptive significance

Answer 22

the reason why the trait is an asset; why natural selection favored the evolution of the trait.

Question 23

Pleiotropy

Answer 23

control of an allele of a single gene of two or more distinct and unrelated traits

Question 24

genetic drift

Answer 24

processes in which chance assumes a preeminent role in altering gene frequencies

Question 25

Why do animals eat all the time?

Answer 25

• Energy is needed to combat entropy

- Animals continuously breakdown and rebuild tissues and need new material for that

Question 26

Animals are structurally dynamic

Answer 26

• Organization of atom’s define the animal, but the atom’s are always changing and being replaced.

Question 27

Marine invertebrates

Answer 27

have body fluids near the salt concentration of sea water and do not need to regulate

Question 28

Freshwater animals

Answer 28

tend to gain water osmotically, which dilutes their body fluids, and must use energy to pump it out

Question 29

Terrestrial animals

Answer 29

tent to lose water, must use mechanisms to maintain water

Question 30

marine animals

Answer 30

subject to water loss if they have terrestrial or freshwater ancestry