Lecture 5

Question 1

Which ones are the ecological implications of thermal performance curves?

Answer 1

1. Distribution Limits
2. Implications of climate change
3. Adaptation/Acclimation

Question 2

Distribution limit

Answer 2

Where an organism is found spatially and temporally either on a small scale or wide geographic scale

Question 3

Implications of climate change

Answer 3

Important for predicting how an organism will respond to climate change

Question 4

Adaptation/ Acclimation

Answer 4

How can the thermal performance curve can be altered?

Question 5

… offer the perfect place to study distribution limits because we see a wide range of environmental conditions over a small region

Answer 5

Intertidial zones

Question 6

Tell some responses to climate changes

Answer 6

• Population collapse, extinctions
• Failure of large-scale migration
• Changes in timing of biological events
• Change in food availability and food web structure

Question 7

Acclimation

Answer 7

Changes in physiology or morphology resulting from exposure to environmental stress. It’s a short term shift and usually reversible. NOT GENECTIC CHANGES.

Question 8

Adaptation

Answer 8

Genetically-based changes in physiology or morphology via natural selection. It’s a permanent shift

Question 9

limits to adaptive responses

Answer 9

• Physiological limits
• homeosgasis has energetic costs

Question 10

Physiological limits

Answer 10

laws of chemistry and physics set ultimate limits

Question 11

Homeostasis has energetic costs

Answer 11

No animal has unlimited time, energy or toher resource

Question 13

Tardigrades

Answer 13

They have survived 5 mass extinctions, they are sensitive to prolonged exposure to high temperatures