Factors affecting metabolic rates

Question 1

How do oxygen regulators regulate oxygen?

Answer 1

Oxygen regulators are more advanced animals with gills and circulatory systems. As oxygen content in the water drops the organism increase the ventilation in their gills and increases the circulation in their body. Need more oxygen to tissues pump blood faster.

Question 2

Is an organism a discrete regulator or conformer?

Answer 2

No regulators and conformers are two extremes on a continuum

Question 3

What is the critical oxygen tension (COT)?

Answer 3

Point you stop being a regulator and become a conformer. The oxygen has gotten too low that you can not regulate any more.

Question 4

The lower your critical oxygen tension the better _____ you are.

Answer 4

oxygen regulator

Question 5

Is an organism a better oxygen regulator at high or low temperature?

Answer 5

low temperatures

Question 6

What is another adaptation water breathers use to survive hypoxic events?

Answer 6

behavioral adaptation

Question 7

What are some behavioral adaptations water breathers have in response to low oxygen content in water?

Answer 7

1. vertical migration

2. horizontal migration

Question 8

When does vertically migration happen?

Answer 8

daytime to night time or seasonally

Question 9

What is an example of horizontal movement as a behavioral response to hypoxic water?

Answer 9

A jubilee where there is a change in water temperatures that allows a low oxygen layer to form at the bottom. Crabs and fish that live at the bottom will move horizontally towards the shore because where the waves break oxygen will be mixed into the water.

Question 10

What is ASR?

Answer 10

Aquatic surface migration. It is a form of vertical migration as a behavioral response to low oxygen content in water. Takes place when oxygen levels drop and animal migrate to the surface and they use the micro layer of fully saturated oxygen.

Question 11

What is an example of ASR? How common is it?

Answer 11

Mosquito fish live in areas with no oxygen in the water they swim on surface and use the micro layer of oxygen.

Wide spread adaptations in fishes.

Question 12

What is another way animals can mitigate low oxygen?

Answer 12

Modify hemoglobin to have a higher affinity for oxygen

Question 13

Why are aquatic organisms more prone to oxygen problems than terrestrial organisms?

Answer 13

1. water has a low oxygen content to begin with

2. ANy change in temperature or salinity affects oxygen content

Question 14

what types of terrestrial animals have problems with low oxygen?

Answer 14

burrowing animals

Question 15

What os the biggest problem water breathers have?

Answer 15

Water breathers major organ is the gills. Water and molecules move across the gills very easily the problem come in is how the fish maintain its buffers: carbonate and bicarbonate when they can freely diffuse out across the gills. It is a big problem with fish that are active and have a high metabolic rate and they can have issues with pH because they build up hydrogen ions bc they lose co2 across the gills easily. CO2 combines with water to form bicarbonate-pH buffer. So instead they store the acid and release it a little at a time so they don’t become acidotic.

Question 16

What was the study done on brooke trout?

Answer 16

Chased trout around in an aquarium and checked to see how the fish managed the acid loads. 20 minutes of chasing the trout around in a tank took 2 and half weeks to get ride of the acid load.

Question 17

How do humans deal with increased activity and the acid?

Answer 17

We repay the oxygen debt

Question 18

How does the goldfish and the Caribbean carp deal with oxygen in the water?

Answer 18

They will produce a different terminal acceptor, an alcohol ethanol. Unheard of in vertebrates besides these two fish.

Question 19

What are some factors that effect metabolic rate?

Answer 19

oxygen content, pressure, and body size

Question 20

With an increasing elevation what happens to the partial pressure of oxygen?

Answer 20

it drops. fewer amount of oxygen molecules per liter of gas

Question 21

When you go from sea level to high altitude what happens to the human body?

Answer 21

altitude sickness- cant catch breath feel sick

it goes away after a period of time bc we can acclimatize

Question 22

Why is there such a high pressure at the depths of the oceans?

Answer 22

every meter you descend under water you add 1 atm of pressure

Question 23

What are the four ways in which high pressure affects metabolism?

Answer 23

1. disrupt pH systems
2. shift velocity constants
3. collapse weak chemical bonds
4. alter liquid to solid phase transitions

Question 24

What is the compressive ability of water?

Answer 24

Water is not that compressible. It has a very low compression coefficient of about 3% That means when maximum pressure is applied to water the most it will compress is 3%

Question 25

Why is the high pressure of deep sea a problem for humans if water does not compress that much under high pressure? Why is this not a problem for animals that live in the deep sea?

Answer 25

Gases do compress well and under high pressure for example in the deep sea the water will not compress but the gas in the water compresses. In your body the lung and air spaces in your body compress and pressure increases. Tissues and cells do not compress. So for animals that live in the deep sea they do not have the air spaces we have so it is not a problem.

Question 26

What is the effects on volume reactions as you move to deeper oceans higher pressure?

Answer 26

Volume reaction like a ball of yarn-let your dog play with it… gets bigger but same amount of yarn.

As you move to deeper and deeper pressures you see the affects on volume reactions you have low volume molecules and high volume molecules based on how much space is left. High pressure favors low volume reactions.

Question 27

Between 50-100atm what happens to metabolic activity of surface dwelling animals like fish and crabs and why?

Answer 27

Increase in metabolic activity bc animals have pressure sensors baroreceptors which tell the animals they are too deep too much pressure and to travel back to the surface.

Question 28

What happens to metabolic rate of surface dwelling animals like fish and crabs at 200-400atm and why?

Answer 28

Animals limit metabolism. The volume reaction and enzyme pathways manifest themselves and begin to breakdown so the metabolism does too.

Question 29

After 500-600atm what happens to metbolic rate of surface dwelling animals like fish and crabs?

Answer 29

It stops and the animal dies

Question 30

For deep sea dwelling animals what happens as they travel to the surface with decreasing pressure?

Answer 30

The opposite of what happens when surface dwelling animals travel to higher pressures.
Same break points but as they move up things begin to break down.

Question 31

From an evolutionary standpoint is it possible to design system to work more efficiently at different pressure levels?

Answer 31

yes

Question 32

How does extreme high pressure affect animals pH system?

Answer 32

As you add pressure weak acid and base dissociation is favored so weak acid and base system begin to break down for example buffer system and etc.

Question 33

Hoe does high pressure effect velocity constants?

Answer 33

Velocity constants are dictated by how enzymes function. High pressure favors low volume reactions. So enzymes that mediate low volume reaction will speed up! Velocity constants shift. High volume reactions will slow down.

Question 34

How does high pressure collapse weak chemical bonds?

Answer 34

Hydrogen bonding and van der waals forces break down and they are really sensitive to changes in pressure.

Question 35

Why do deep sea animals have increases in disulfide bonds and salt bridges in the molecular bonding of their enzymes?

Answer 35

Disulfide bonds and salt bridges are extremely strong. With increasing temperature the hydrogen and van der waals forces that normally hold the molecules and enzymes together will break down therefore the deep sea animals need stronger bonds to maintain their enzymes.

Question 36

If you take a deep sea animal put it in a tank to live and study it what will happen and why?

Answer 36

The animal normally dies because its molecular structures such as the disulfide bonds and sals bridges are adapted for the high pressures of the deep ocean and when brought to the surface are non functional

Question 37

How are cell membranes affected with increasing high pressure?

Answer 37

Increasing pressure squashes lipid bilayer making a little fat sandwich and when the bilayer is crushed together molecules that could once diffuse across the membrane can’t anymore and exchange ratios of ions and compounds are altered.

Question 38

What is a biological factor not environmental that affects metabolic rates?

Answer 38

body size

Question 39

Why are bigger body sizes typically not favored in the animal kingdom?

Answer 39

They require much more oxygen when using aerobic metabolism.

Question 40

Total metabolic demand _____ as your ______ increases.

Answer 40

increases

body size

Question 41

When comparing the total oxygen consumption what consumes more the mouse or the elephant? When comparing specific oxygen consumption who consumes more the mouse or the elephant? WHy?

Answer 41

Total oxygen consumption the elephant consumes more because it has a larger body size it will have a larger metabolic demand and consume more oxygen. WHen comparing specific oxygen consumption the mouse’s will be greater because a mouse uses more energy to run one gram of its body weight than an elephant does.

Question 42

What is specific oxygen consumption?

Answer 42

Mass specific- total oxygen consumption per gram of body mass

Question 43

What does the mouse to elephant metabolic curve illustrate?

Answer 43

It takes a lot more to run one gram of a mouse than it does to run one gram of elephant. On a gram to gram basis mouse use more oxygen.

Question 44

In the mouse to elephant graph what is plotted?

Answer 44

body mass X specific oxygen consumption

Question 45

If you linearize the relationship between body mass and specific oxygen consumption what is the slope of the line?

Answer 45

-.25 you have log both size

Question 46

If you take the mass out of the graph what will the slope change to?

Answer 46

positive .75

Question 47

When graphing body mass to metabolic rate/oxygen consumption why is the slope always 0.75?

Answer 47

not really sure yet but it has to do with transport systems

Question 48

What is the allometric growth coefficient for mass?

Answer 48

.75 and it is always between .67-1

Question 49

What animal is not on the line and fall into the norm and why?

Answer 49

1. sea otters because they live in butt cold water and burn up sooooooo many calories every minute just to stay warm so they have a much higher metabolism for their size
2. three toed sloths- just sit there and have an extremely low metabolic rate for your size
3. flighted insects

Question 50

Kleiber’s law?

Answer 50

All metabolic rates will fall on this line with the slope of .75 even within species

Question 51

What is max rubner’s surface area hypothesis?

Answer 51

When you look at endothermic animals their metabolic rate is proportional to their surface area because as you generate heat you burn calories and as you generate head you must expel it and the only way to do that is to have a differential between your temp and the environment temp. When you look at other as you increase size you mass goes up in cubic centimeter and surface area goes up in squared centimeters. mass grows faster than surface area and must get rid of heat at the right rate based on surface area. SA is proportional to 2/3 power of Mass slope is 0.67.

Question 52

What is the problem with Max rubner hypothesis?

Answer 52

It has some validity but this only works for endotherms.

Question 53

What is McMahon and Bonner cross sectional area hypothesis?

Answer 53

If you take a cross section anywhere because in the end all the cross sections are the same. But different tissue have different metabolic rates and as you get bigger you have to add more support. Proposed that the connective tissue that has a much lower metabolic rate dominates the total metabolic rate you see in mammals so as they get bigger they’re specific rate has to go down bc they have a lot more connective tissue that doesnt need as much oxygen

Question 54

What is the law of allometry?

Answer 54

as you get bigger you have to ass more support and adjustments for your size allometric relationship between body size and support
example mouse blow it up to size of elephant it would collapse bc bones not made to support the size

Question 55

what is swan additive scaling hypothesis?

Answer 55

No reson why animal cant evolve adaptation that take into consideration both conservation of heat if your a homeotherm and cross sectional areas effects if you a homeotherm like elephant- no mechanism that explains

Question 56

Blum’s four dimensional scaling hypothesis?

Answer 56

It only works for three animals. Used max rubners model but use four dimensions where the fourth dimension is time —> depending on time the metabolic rate will change.

Question 57

WHat is Serntz’s fractal scaling hypothesis?

Answer 57

Used an equation and said that each animal has a fractal constant and you just plug in .75 and find it not very good

Question 58

What is the West and West hypothesis?

Answer 58

They looked at transport systems which are based on fractal geometry. One unifying concept is the diameters of the capillaries similar. When you use that it explains everything because blood is how You transport heat and nutrients. Low metabolic rate in muscle to cartilage based on transport systems but still not good unifying mathematical equation but we can explain it.