Environmental
Physiology of Animals
In
this course,
students will have an opportunity to investigate the diversity of
physiological
responses exhibited by animals to various environmental challenges. These responses have been forged over
evolutionary time and yet also reveal varying degrees of plasticity
during the
lives of individual animals. We
will read the primary literature focusing in particular, on animal
responses to
extreme environments. Students
will also derive and conduct their own research.
Syllabus
Essential questions in environmental physiology concern delineating the
mechanisms and fitness consequences of complex phenotypes. The
major departure points are included in the first 3 papers below:
Conservation physiology
Beneficial
acclimation hypothesis
Phenotypic
flexibility
Particular systems: in BOLD
and ITALICS
is paper for our next class
Thermal
sensitivity of Drosophila
melanogaster:
evolutionary responses
Ontogeny
of snake locomotion
Lactation in a seal
Tradeoffs in lactation
Hibernation
and immune response
Osmotic
regulation in fruit
flies
Respiration
in migrating crabs
Shift in
diet-cannibalistic salamanders
Diving physiology
in dolphins
Heart rate and
diving in elephant seals
Larval stress-adult stress
Final paper: Phenotypic
plasticity and the evol of species
Guidelines
for Proposal
Environmental Physiology of
Animals
Due no later than 4/4/07 (in class)
late papers not accepted
Guidelines for poster:
due no later than noon on May 28
Guidelines for final paper:
due no later than noon on May 28
Presentations of 15-20 min.-on fri. may 23 and tues. may 27