Principles of Thermal Ecology Temperature, Energy, and Life

About this book

Temperature affects everything. It influences all aspects of the physical environment and governs any process that involves a flow of energy, setting boundaries on what an organism can or cannot do. This novel textbook reveals the key principles behind the complex relationship between organisms and temperature, namely the science of thermal ecology. It starts by providing a rigorous framework for understanding the flow of energy in and out of the organism, before describing the influence of temperature on what an organism can do. With these fundamental principles covered, Principles of Thermal Ecology's final section explores thermal ecology itself, incorporating the important extra dimension of interactions with other organisms. An entire chapter is devoted to the crucially important subject of how organisms are responding to climate change. Indeed, the threat of rapid climatic change on a global scale is a stark reminder of the challenges that remain for evolutionary thermal biologists, and adds a sense of urgency to this book's mission.

Contents

1: Introduction
2: Energy and heat
3: Temperature and its measurement
4: Energy flow in organisms
5: Water
6: Freezing
7: Temperature and reaction rate
8: Metabolism
9: Temperature regulation
10: Endothermy
11: Torpor and hibernation
12: The metabolic theory of ecology
13: Temperature, growth and size
14: Global temperate and life
15: Temperature and diversity
16: Global climate change and its consequences
17: Ten principles of thermal ecology

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Biography

Andrew Clarke studied zoology and geology at Cambridge University, spending the summer of 1968 supporting geological fieldwork in Svalbard. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1970 he joined the British Antarctic Survey and spent the next 40 years working in South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Antarctic continent with the occasional return trip to Svalbard, and retired in 2010. His main ecological interests centre on how animals and plants relate to temperature. He has worked primarily with marine invertebrates and fish, but also on birds, mammals, and most recently dinosaurs. He has written over 180 scientific papers.