Animal Life at Low Temperature

Part 1 Introductory material: basic concepts - temperature, water and low temperature, colligative properties of aqueous solutions, categories of body temperature control, zone of neutrality, critical temperatures, Newton's Law of Cooling, thermal conductance, windchill, cold acclimatization and adaptation, heat production; the cold environment - present conditions, palaeoclimatology, climatic zones, high latitude microhabitats. Part 2 Behaviour, anatomy and physiology: behavioural responses to low temperature - movement, basking, gregariousness, shelter; anatomy and physiology of endotherms - shape, size and climate, structural insulation (fur, fat and feathers), vascular arrangements to minimize heat loss, physiological insulation, thermogenesis; sleep, torpor and hibernation - in ectotherms, in endotherms, supercooled hibernation in endotherms, hibernation in bears. Part 3 Life at temperatures below 0 C: subzero survival in terrestrial animals - survival of insects and other terrestrial arthropods, freezing-tolerance in terrestrial vertebrates; subzero temperatures and marine ectotherms - supercooling in deep-water fish, heightened plasma osmolarity in cold-water fish, antifreezes in high-latitude fish, eggs of the capelin, freezing in intertidal invertebrates, freezing avoidance by intertidal invertebrates. Part 4: Man and cold - human morphology and cold, physiological/metabolic adaptations and responses, damage by cold, clothing, shelter, fire, cold and human diet, medical hypothermia, cold technology. Part 5 Cold and evolution: evolution and low temperature - general considerations, cold and the evolution of endothermy, cold and extinction.