Section 1 - Concepts in Environmental Physiology
What range of topics might be included under “physiology’?
What are some of the major environmental characteristics focused on in this course?
Explain the concept of function being based on structure at the biochemical and physiological level.
Describe homeostasis and explain how it applies particularly to marine organisms.
How does genetics play a role in the environmental physiology of marine organisms?
What is an adaptation? What are some ways that you could go about investigating whether something is actually adaptive?
Explain the relationship between the effects of environmental variability on physiological processes and fitness.
Describe how an organism’s physiology might change in response to environmental changes on different time scales.
How are marine organisms capable of detecting changes in their environment?
At what level do organisms typically respond to environmental change in terms of avoidance, conformance and regulation?
What generalizations apply to the way that major groups of marine organisms respond to changes in their environment?
Section 2 – The Marine Environment
Describe the relationship between environmental variability and the overall biology and ecology of an organism.
What are the major physical and biological variables in the marine environment?
Describe the general characteristics of the ocean in terms of temperature, salinity, sunlight, oxygen, pressure, currents and waves, and viscosity.
Describe how nutrients, predators and competitors vary and can influence the physiology of marine organisms.
Section 3 – Temperature
What are the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics and how do they apply to marine environmental physiology?
What is a heat budget and what determines the balance of heat within an organism?
How is heat transfer regulated?
Explain how temperature can be an accelerator or inhibitor on physiological processes.
Describe the time scales upon which temperature change can influence the physiology of marine organisms.
What is temperature quotient? Why is it used so commonly in physiological studies?
What are typical Q10 for biochemical and enzymatic reactions and for larger-scale physiological processes?
What is metabolic homeostasis?
What major mechanisms are used by marine organisms to regulate heat transfer?
Describe how some animals can regulate heat transfer by adjusting blood flow.
Describe how countercurrent circulation is used to limit heat loss to the environment.
Differentiate between ectotherms and endotherms.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an ectotherm?
Describe how the Galapagos marine iguana thermoregulates through a combination of behavioral and physiological mechanisms.
What are heterotherms? What marine animals are heterotherms?
What are the advantages of regional endothermy?
Compare circulation in a typical fish with circulation in a regional endotherm in terms of structural differences that result in differential heat loss.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of endothermy?
Explain how endothermy might have evolved.
Describe countercurrent circulation found in many marine endotherms.
What kinds of marine organisms are faced with the problem of environmental temperature variation that is great enough to warrant energy expenditure for thermoregulation?
Be familiar with the material in each of the papers assigned for the course, especially in regards to general concepts presented in the lectures and specific examples of physiological processes in the marine environment in relation to environmental variability or extremes.