Warmer environment means shorter lives for cold-blood...(tabolic theory of ecology (MTE) predicts...)

Date:7/27/2009

tabolic theory of ecology (MTE) predicts. The MTE is a modeling framework that has been used to explain the way in which life history, population dynamics, geographic patterns, and other ecological processes scale with an animal's body size and temperature.

"You can think of an animal as a beaker in which chemical reactions are taking place," said Salinas. "The same rules that apply to a liquid inside a beaker should apply to animals. Chemists have a relationship for how an increase in temperature will speed up reaction rates, so the MTE borrows that relationship and applies it--with some obvious caveats--to living things."

The lifespan in 87% of the free-living species Munch and Salinas studied varied as predicted by the MTE. Yet after removing the effect of temperature, there was still considerable variation in lifespan within species, indicating that other, local factors still play a role in determining lifespan.

"It is interesting to consider how cold-blooded species are likely to react in the face of global warming," said Salinas. "Because of the exponential relationship between temperature and lifespan, small changes in temperature could result in relatively large changes in lifespan. We could see changes to ecosystem structure and stability if cold-blooded species change their life histories to accommodate warmer temperatures but warm-blooded species do not."

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Contact: Leslie Taylor leetaylor@notes.cc.sunysb.edu 631-632-8621 Stony Brook University Source:Eurekalert

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