Question

Design an experiment that tests the effect of body temperature on the aerobic capacity in an animal of your choice. What variables would you measure, and how? Include detail about experimental design and instrumentation, to show your understanding of how data are acquired. Present hypothetical data (in graphical form), which support your predictions. Make sure to label your graphs accurately and precisely, and use reasonable values (and units) for parameters measured.

Answer 1

• Increased body temperature in animals shows increase in the metabolic rate .
• This is one of the adaptation of the anim al to the environment.
• Here we perform experime nt on Round tailed squirrel which is found in deserts.

Animal collection

• The animals are collected during march and april .
• These animals are housed in a temperature controlled chambers.

Procedure

• Heat measurement can be done by placing the transmitters in the abdominal cavity of the animals.
• Animals are exposed to heat in randomised manner .
• The metabolic rate is measured in animals before and after heat exposure.
• Different temperatures are supplied. Animals will be in active phase and as well as resting phase .
• For measuring the aerobic capacity , the metabolic rates are measured using respirometric chambers.
• The CO2 produced in the chamber and O2 concentration of the air are measured daily.
• Measurement of CO2 production and O2 intake are done so as to correlate metabolic rate with aerobic capacity.

Results

• As the temperatures increases the metabolic rate also increases.
• But the aerobic capacity increases only for a particular temperature and starts decreasing after that .
• The aerobic capacity is optimum only in the median temperatures and less active in the ends.