Temperature affects many aspects of an ectotherm’s life, ultimately affecting bo

Question

Temperature affects many aspects of an ectotherm’s life, ultimately affecting both the total amount of energy acquired and assimilated and how this energy is allocated among GSMR. This in turn influences life history phenotypes that we can see and measure. It is often the case that if one examines the body size of a species along an elevational gradient (up and down the side of a mountain), there is usually a pattern that higher elevation populations exhibit larger body size, and larger egg size than lower elevation populations (THIS IS A PATTERN). Using the allocation framework, and thinking about the ways in which we know temperature affects an ectotherm’s biology, offer at least one mechanistic hypothesis to explain this. Be specific.

Explanation / Answer

Ans. Temperature posses a vital threat on ectotherm organism. The body temperature fluctuates with external environment resulting in change in the rate of biochemical reactions and increase in biological process. A change in temperature would result in temperature size rule TSR or reverse TSR.

The relationship between temperature and its effects can be determined by Boltzman equation

e-Ea/kt

Ea is energy of activation

k Boltzmans constant

T absolute temperature

The change in temperature would result in the change in growth rate or rate of biomass accumulation and rate of ontogenetic differentiation both on temperature dependence.

Thus the relation of mass and temperature would become e-(Eg-Ed)/kT

The ATP driven metabolic process is hampered due to the drastic change in temperature leading to impaired metabolic rate of the ectotherms.

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