Facilitating Transformative

Interdisciplinary
Collaborative Projects

Robert
Fleisig

IMPACT PROJECT
Interdisciplinary
Meaningful/Mentorship
Practice
Applied
Collaborative/Community
Transformative

Lovaye
Kajiura

Brenda
Vrkljan

Email kajiura@mcmaster.ca

MARVIN GUNDERMAN
gundermn@mcmaster.ca
LSB 116

CHP 5 TEMPERATURE RELATIONS

Temperature affects organisms in many
ways:
Directly by affecting metabolism
Indirectly by changing the habitat
even plants can change habitat

Can you think of ways how temperature

affects organisms via habitat?
EXAMPLES:
causing currents,
stratifying a lake,
freezing water (cold drought),
drying the soil, etc.

1. The River Continuum Concept claims that animal communities reflect size and quality of food particle gradient of the river
2. In which habitat one is most likely to find abundant epiphytes? among top branches of rain forest
3. Formation of an atoll is contingent on erosion or subsiding of a tropical island

Question
Can plants regulate their temperature?
yes they can, increase S.A to V ratio, change position to perpendicular or spread
out towards sun. hug the ground reducing S.A. decrease amount of pubescent
hair (tricones) on leaves, which can influence wind, affects amount of moisture.

Review/examples of ways
in which T is important

for coevolutionary adaptation.

Warming the flowers to attract

insects (Dryas)

suns parabolic effects

Air temperature = 15oC

Flower & insect = 25oC

Dryas flowers
keep tracking sun
for several hours
each day

Sunlight reflects
from parabolicshaped flowers to
heat an insect

Question
If plants can regulate their
own temperature, can they
affect their environment, too?
yes deciduous plants in fall they shed leaves, cooling down
soil by blocking radiation. when leaves decay, they are more
moist. help to make more fertile soil
environments with canopy of trees will be cooler.

Plants modify their microhabitat T by:

shading,

accumulating litter,
accummulating O horizon (retains more water)

shade helps keep moisture it needs to grow

48C

29C

27C

21C

23C

Different habitats have different thermal regimes;

Why does black sand appear black? Is it warmer
or cooler than white sand?
place with black sand, warmer
than white sand. mice in dark/
light are adapted to having
dark/light colour skin

65 C

45 C

Often the arithmetic mean is the same but

variation differs
Aquatic habitats are less

variable

closer to surface, higher variation.

Question
How does stream temperature
affect Chinook salmon
reproduction and survival?
certain types of aquatic organisms, using same habitat,
need reproductive isolations, have certain range which is
optimal for them, impacted greatly by temperature variation.

Question
Can organisms optimize
their physiology and
growth for the typical
range of temperatures?
some can have phenotypic plasticity, but a lot dont.

Plants
photosynthesize
best at preferred
T
True of many
other metabolic
processes in
plants and
animals
Compare
enzymes or
bacteria

Organism can adjust and

optimize performance for
different temperatures
Experiment with
cuttings of a
desert shrub
grown in cold and
hot chambers
Plants achieved
different optima;
of 8oC

Thermal Regulation: Main Terms

No or poor regulation: poikilotherms
External sources of warmth: ectotherms
Internal sources of warmth: endotherms

Heat gains and losses:

Metabolic heat internally generated
Conduction direct transfer from other things
Convection lost or gain to moving air or H2O
Radiation heat electromagnetic radiation
Evaporation lost during evaporation
endotherms

important to ectotherms

Methods used by poikilotherms may involve:

Coloration change
Hairs

Waxes stop evaporation

Antifreezes

prevents from freezing (dont become brittle and die)

Clustering to form
cushions (wind
horses/wild
protection) wild
buffalo, when cold,

they will huddle

together, little ones
inside

Basking (grasshoppers)
Also:
crocodiles,
lizards, snakes do
this.
Cooling in water
under ground, or
in shade
Stilting (beetles)
stilting: body facing towards sun

Question
Are all mammals equally
capable of regulating their
body temperature?

Mammals differ in their abilities to thermoregulate

depending on where they live
Tropical species maintain a
constant metabolic rate
over a narrow range of
temperatures
Arctic and temperate species
maintain a constant
metabolic rate over a broad
Squirrel
range of temperatures
Polar bear cub
Eskimo dog
Arctic fox

Sloth
Night monkey
Human
Marmoset

Question
Can insects be endotherms as
well as poikilotherms and
ectotherms?

Experiment:
Lesson: moth can
control its temperature

Lesson: control of T is
crucial to flying

Task/challenge figure out steps needed to show that moths

regulate their body temperature

Abdomen
heats up

Abdomen
remains at
air
temperature

Yes!

Skunk cabbage is
an endotherm
Starch is stored
in the root,
transferred to
spadix

Plant can
generate high T
for two weeks

Torpor humming birds

Hibernation bears, snakes, squirrels, insects
Shivering insects, mammals

Changing habitat burrows, water, shade

Increasing metabolic rates: skunk cabbage

Burying eggs in sand or compost that

maintains or generates heat: bower birds,
crocodiles

Local habitat affects microclimate and vice versa

Most species perform best in a limited range of T
Organisms (many) developed methods to
compensate for variation in internal and external
temperature
Organisms (many) avoid extreme temperatures
by entering a resting stage

 How much water is in the air?

Which season is most difficult for plants
to get water?
Do aquatic organisms lose water?
What is water potential?
What are striking adaptations to water
acquisition and retention in various
organisms?
Why cottonwoods decline in the
prairies?

Gradients of water potential

Terrestrial plants and animals
balance water loss against water
intake

Marine and freshwater animals

regulate water and salt diffusion
depending on osmotic pressure
Precipitation and its timing, and humidity
define biomes in N. America

Air 46 C above
max tolerated

Sonoran desert: Air

temp = 46oC (deadly)
ground = 70oC
Cicada actively sings, no
predator active, sits on
branches, in shade

How can it do it and

not to dry up or
overheat?

Ground
70 C
fatal

Question
How much water is needed to
saturate the air?

Measured by grams of
H2O in air or pressure
of H2O vapor
Recall water
precipitation in air
circulation cells (when
the air cools)
However, if there is
little water to start with
and the air warms up,
how does it feel?

H2O is lost as vapor,

must be replenished
(drinking, absorption)

In 100% relative humidity,

evaporation cannot take
place and thus no cooling
To cool Cicada must lose H2O
but which water?

Rate of water loss

Evaporation cools
(energy used)

What does cicada

eat?
Evaporative cooling
allows cicada to
function in hot air;
water gained from
plant
Also, varying
humidity enables or
disables H2O
regulation

Desert beetles
gather fog water
on their bodies
(morning) and
let it drip to the
mouth

Water is
important to
beetles .. (and to
anyone living in
very dry
environments)

Note:
the small loss
of H2O via
secretions
gain of water
through
oxidation

Questions
What causes water to move ?

Gravity?
But how does water get to leaves
in tall trees?

=capacity of water to do work

(it involves a variety of
physical processes)
A gradient of water
concentration from soil to air
allows for its movement (work)

A gradient of salt concentration

can also affect water movement
The steeper the gradient,
the easier the movement

More extensive roots help replenish water lost to

dry air
Same plant on
two different
sites: dry and
wet

Find 9 mechanisms to keep or gain H2O

Questions
Is water easier to manage when you are an
aquatic organism?
Is this different in fresh and salt
water?

Water in Water

Hagfish

Isosmotic equal concentrations

of salts and water
Hyperosmotic higher
concentrations of salts, lower of
water: absorbs water

Catfish

Hypoosmotic lower
concentrations of salt relative to
the surroundings: loses water
These conditions describe
differences for living in salt
and fresh waters

Mandarin

Hypoosmotic organisms often drink water

Must replenish that lost to the outside
Problem: need to get rid of
salt, too

Sharks are different

Only slightly
hyperosmotic: thus ???
Absorb or lose water?
Elephant shark

Organisms are
always
hyperosmotic
Absorb water
and lose salts
How do they
gain salts?
Must have tools to
capture salt:
specialized gill cells,
anal papillae
(outgrowths)

iClickers
Classroom
Response System.
Active Learning
provides immediate
feedback.
These iClicker
questions will not
be formally graded.

Questions to be
shown in
Lectures

Water movement along potential gradients

determine water availability
Terrestrial plants and animals regulate water
losses against gains through many
adaptations

Aquatic organisms must deal with water

movement in or out, simultaneously with
movement of salts

Some questions for one of the next

topics...
What are the modes by which organisms
gain energy?
What modifies the speed by which energy
is acquired?
How does optimum foraging theory relate
to behavior and energy needs?
How can we use knowledge of nutrient
ratios in remediation?

Check the Biology 2F03 Avenue website DAILY

for new announcements and postings.
Read Ecology- Concepts & Applications
textbook Chp. 7 Energy & Nutrient Relations &
Chp. 10 Distribution & Abundance of
Populations & Species
Read Lecture Information& Tutorial Information
posted on Avenue.

Enjoy the rest of your week!