How Animals WorkAn elegant analysis of how animals work and function. Professor Schmidt-Nielsen's incisive account gives a clear understanding of comparative physiology in relation to body size, form and function, energy supply, and environment. The author is concerned with principles. For example, he explains how difficult it may be to lose heat and water from the respiratory tract. This leads to a consideration of the mechanism of panting as a means of heat loss. The author describes the centuries-old problem of how birds breathe, which now has been solved in his laboratory. He then discusses energy expenditure for swimming, running, and flying, and the effects of activity on heat balance. The ability of mammals to maintain different parts of the body at different temperatures is explained on the basis of counter-current heat exchange; a related mechanism permits the fast-swimming tuna to enjoy some of the advantages of being warm-blooded. The problems raised by being small in size, or large, are considered in detail. It is shown that many physiological variables can be placed on a scale which permits the derivation of non-dimensional numbers to describe the interrelations between different parameters. This interesting and stimulating account was written primarily for students, but since it brings together and synthesizes much new and up-to-date information it will interest all biologists and physiologists. |
Contents
Respiration and evaporation | 11 |
Evaporation mice and men | 11 |
A cold nose | 11 |
Flukes and flippers or Countercurrent heat exchange | 11 |
Measurements on birds | 11 |
Effects on water balance | 12 |
Mathematical model of nasal heat exchange | 15 |
Coldblooded animals | 19 |
Total or net cost | 55 |
Flying and swimming | 57 |
Activity body temperature and evaporation | 60 |
A running bird | 65 |
Countercurrent a cheap trick | 68 |
More heat exchangers | 70 |
Oxygen a problem | 73 |
Exchangers and multipliers a cause of confusion | 75 |
A perpetuum mobile? or A littleknown heat engine | 22 |
Panting and heat loss | 26 |
Panting birds | 30 |
Modulation of heat dissipation | 34 |
How birds breathe | 37 |
Control of air flow | 43 |
The throughflow of air in the lung | 44 |
Evidence for countercurrent flow? | 45 |
Bird flight at altitude | 47 |
The trumpeter swan or Deadspace and wing beat | 49 |
Exercise energy and evaporation | 51 |
The cost of running | 53 |
Whale arteries and an unlikely idea | 81 |
In search of generalizations | 83 |
Body size and problems of scaling | 85 |
LSD and the elephant | 86 |
Scaling the skeleton | 88 |
Metabolic rate size and surface | 89 |
Surface a stifling constraint or Easy equations | 92 |
Oxygen supply more scaling | 96 |
Scaling of the lung | 101 |
105 | |
111 | |
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Common terms and phrases
air flow altitude ambient air temperature amount arterial blood avian Bird flight bird lung body surface body temperature body weight Bohr effect brain bronchi cactus wren calculated capillary carbonic anhydrase concentration cooling cost Countercurrent exchangers countercurrent heat exchanger dead-space desert iguana diagram diffusion dissociation curve duck elephant energy evaporation exhaled air temperature figure fish flight flipper flow of air flying function gas exchange gas gland heat dissipation heat load heat loss heat production hemoglobin high body temperature higher hunting dog increase inhaled air kangaroo rat Kleiber Lasiewski loop mammalian mammals metabolic rate MOUSE Murrish muscle nasal passage nose O₂ ostrich oxygen consumption panting permits physiological piston posterior sacs pressure regression line relative humidity respiration respiratory air respiratory system rete rhea rodents running saturated scaling Schmidt-Nielsen similar slope speed surface area swimbladder swimming tension tidal volume tion tissues vascular venous blood ventilation water balance water vapor whale
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Page 108 - By Lemuel Gulliver, first a Surgeon and then a Captain of several Ships.