Comparative Physiology Intro Flashcards
Define comparative animal physiology
study of morphological, physiological, behavioral adaptations that enhance an organisms ability to survive, grow, and/or reproduce with respect to the abiotic/biotic environment.
What are the domains of comparative animal physiology?
- Stress testing- quantifies HOW individuals handle environmental factors
- Adaptation- determines WHAT tactics an animal uses to determine life history strategies and also answers WHY they work the way they do
Why is physiology considered the “Queen of biological sciences?”
Requires a working knowledge of all 20 biological subdivisions as well as math, physics, chemistry, etc.
Why is physiology also known as the “old mans game”?
You will study physiology till you get old bc the complexity of physiology requires longgg hours of study so much stuff!
Why is the comparative approach used?
- Allows to quantify a range of variation of adaptation
- Allows to recognize patterns, structure, and regularity
- Allows to understand the mechanisms by which animals work
- Makes the study of physiology easily organized and understandable
What is the resource condition concept?
habitats are made up of resources and conditions.
A resource is anything that is consumable for example oxygen, food, etc.
A condition is anything that is not consumable for example light temperature etc.
Animals must deal with the conditions in order to consume the resources. Environment is the central identifying entity.
What are the advantages of the resource condition concept?
- Easily organized and compartmentalized to make it easy to understand.
- Does not require any previous knowledge of physiology.
- Each concept is assimilated independent of the other.
What are the disadvantages of the Resource condition concept?
- Presents physiology as an overly simplistic view.
- Organismal dependent: for example light is not a resource to humans but it is to plants.
- Does not look at the big picture.
What is the Fry Paradigm?
Environmental entity is not the central organizing feature but it is the animals’ response to it.
What are the advantages of the Fry Paradigm?
- Looks at the big picture.
- Returns data that has clear ecological solutions-reactions relate directly to environment
- Considers all reactions simultaneously
- Gives quality and quantity to resources and condition such as temp
What are the disadvantages of the Fry Paradigm?
- Must have an extensive knowledge of physiological systems
2. Difficult to manipulate
What are Fry’s five famous environmental entities?
- Lethal Factors-anything that kills the animal
- Controlling factor-Any entity that directly affects the molecular kinetic reactions in the animal- ie in the end effect the org rate of metabolism or development
- Limiting Factor-reduce active metabolism and interfere with the delivery of materials into or out of the body-restrict or limit energy production-limit locomotion and distribution
- Regulatory Factor-entity that when you disturb homeostatious and in response your physiology responds to that and restore it.
- Directing Factors-Attraction or avoidance types of reactions.
How is temperature an example of each of Frys environmental entities?
- lethal-too hot or too cold of temperature it will kill you
- Take fish egg and hold at 20 degrees develop in 15 days if you lower the temp to 10 degrees they take 25 days to develop…lower the temp increases development time of eggs.
- Low end oxygen limiting factor trout metabolism too slow body slow down
- easily mistaken-oxygen masking regulatory factor over temp for the survival of trout increase temp they die not bc of heat but bc of low oxygen content
- Directing-If the air is too warm or too cold you will move to a preferred temperature
