Symmorphosis

Symmorphosis PDF Author: Ewald R. Weibel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674000681
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Are animals designed economically? The theory of symmorphosis predicts that the size of the parts in a system must be matched to the overall functional demand. Weibel shows how animals as different as shrews, pronghorns, dogs, goats--even humans--all develop from essentially the same blueprint by variation of design.

Symmorphosis

Symmorphosis PDF Author: Ewald R. Weibel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674000681
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Are animals designed economically? The theory of symmorphosis predicts that the size of the parts in a system must be matched to the overall functional demand. Weibel shows how animals as different as shrews, pronghorns, dogs, goats--even humans--all develop from essentially the same blueprint by variation of design.

Principles of Animal Design

Principles of Animal Design PDF Author: Ewald R. Weibel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521586672
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book

Book Description
The book discusses whether animals are designed according to the same rules that engineers use in building machines.

Biomechanics and Biology of Movement

Biomechanics and Biology of Movement PDF Author: Benno Maurus Nigg
Publisher: Human Kinetics
ISBN: 9780736003315
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Get Book

Book Description
"A text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in human performance, it uses an integrated scientific approach to explore solutions to problems in human movement. As an interdisciplinary reference volume for biomechanists, exercise physiologists, motor behaviorists, athletic trainers, therapists, kinesiologists, and students, Biomechanics and Biology of Movement offers an in-depth understanding and appreciation of the many factors comprising and affecting human movement. In addition, it will give you the insights and information you require to address and resolve individual performance problems."--BOOK JACKET.

Principles of Human Locomotion

Principles of Human Locomotion PDF Author: Thomas Rowland
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527559246
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book

Book Description
This book addresses how the general principles of biology influence the human capacity for locomotion, and, conversely, how understanding the nature of muscular activity might provide insights into the basic nature of living beings. Through a series of essays, the book relates the evolutionary basis of animal locomotion to recognizing the determinants of exercise capacity. While raising more questions than providing answers, the discussions will assume that without knowing the correct questions to ask, the answers will not be forthcoming. At the root of this book lies the central query: what is it that separates the principles governing the function of living beings from those that dictate the inanimate world? The discussions here address this issue from the expectation that clues to the answer can be obtained through understanding adaptations to the stresses imposed by physical exercise. As such, the book provides thought-provoking analyses of the biological basis of locomotion that will stimulate future efforts to understand these phenomena.

Physiological Ecology

Physiological Ecology PDF Author: William H. Karasov
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691213313
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 744

Get Book

Book Description
Unlocking the puzzle of how animals behave and how they interact with their environments is impossible without understanding the physiological processes that determine their use of food resources. But long overdue is a user-friendly introduction to the subject that systematically bridges the gap between physiology and ecology. Ecologists--for whom such knowledge can help clarify the consequences of global climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and pollution--often find themselves wading through an unwieldy, technically top-heavy literature. Here, William Karasov and Carlos Martínez del Rio present the first accessible and authoritative one-volume overview of the physiological and biochemical principles that shape how animals procure energy and nutrients and free themselves of toxins--and how this relates to broader ecological phenomena. After introducing primary concepts, the authors review the chemical ecology of food, and then discuss how animals digest and process food. Their broad view includes symbioses and extends even to ecosystem phenomena such as ecological stochiometry and toxicant biomagnification. They introduce key methods and illustrate principles with wide-ranging vertebrate and invertebrate examples. Uniquely, they also link the physiological mechanisms of resource use with ecological phenomena such as how and why animals choose what they eat and how they participate in the exchange of energy and materials in their biological communities. Thoroughly up-to-date and pointing the way to future research, Physiological Ecology is an essential new source for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students-and an ideal synthesis for professionals. The most accessible introduction to the physiological and biochemical principles that shape how animals use resources Unique in linking the physiological mechanisms of resource use with ecological phenomena An essential resource for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students An ideal overview for researchers

Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology

Advances in Comparative and Environmental Physiology PDF Author:
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642785980
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book

Book Description
ADVANCES IN COMPARATIVE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY helps biologists, physiologists, and biochemists keep track of the extensive literature in thefield. Providing comprehensive, integrated reviews and sound, critical, and provocative summaries, this series is a must for all active researchers in environmental and comparative physiology. The present volume contains six reviews on: - Motile Activities of Fish Chromatophores. - Epithelial Transport of Heavy Metals. - Heavy Metal Cytotoxicity in Marine Organisms. - Comparative Pulmonary Morphology and Morphometry. - Molecular Adaptations in Resistance to Penicillins. - Molecular Adaptations of Enzymes From Thermophilic and Psychrophilic Organisms.

Searching for the Limits of Human Physical Performance

Searching for the Limits of Human Physical Performance PDF Author: Thomas Rowland
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527547094
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book

Book Description
What is it that limits how fast we can run, or how long we can row, cycle, or swim without tiring? What is exercise fatigue? One dares to say that not a single human being has not experienced those unpleasant feelings of physical exhaustion when taxed by some form of exercise. These effects are common and obvious, but, despite many years of research efforts, still unexplained. This book examines, from an historical perspective, the quest to decipher the underlying factors responsible for—and, indeed, simply the definition of—exercise fatigue. This story is told in the context of those researchers who have led this search for understanding. Some have been motivated by a search for an epiphany-like insight that would define the mechanisms by which living beings can be limited in their functional capacity, and some have sought this answer relative to socio-political issues surrounding human limitations in labor. Others have even been driven by a need to understand resistance to physical fatigue in humans engaged in war. Today, most such efforts to explain the nature and determinants of exercise fatigue involve optimizing performance in athletes and enhancing both the preventive and therapeutic health outcomes of exercise. The picture provided here is that of a multi-factorial nature of exercise fatigue, the determinants of which may be specific to the type, nature, and duration of the exercise involved. A more contemporary viewpoint, however, would suggest that the interaction between physiological factors may best define one’s ceiling of exercise performance. The implication of such a viewpoint would hold that factors defining exercise fatigue may be even more complicated than previously appreciated, meaning that this is a fascinating mystery waiting to be unraveled.

The Flexible Phenotype

The Flexible Phenotype PDF Author: Theunis Piersma
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199233721
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book

Book Description
In essence, the authors argue for the existence of direct, measurable, links between phenotype and ecology.

Vertebrate Gas Exchange

Vertebrate Gas Exchange PDF Author: Robert G. Boutilier
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642753809
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book

Book Description
The structural and chemical limitations to respiratory gas exchange existing between the ambient medium and the cell are comprehensively treated. Beginning with an examination of the natural oscillations of respiratory gases in both terrestrial and aquatic environments, Vertebrate Gas Exchange details the structures involved in convecting the medium (air or water), the morphometrics of capillary gas transfers, and gas transfer kinetics. Important features include details on measurement techniques associated with tissue capillary supply and gas exchange kinetics.

Resource Allocation Theory Applied to Farm Animal Production

Resource Allocation Theory Applied to Farm Animal Production PDF Author: Wendy M. Rauw
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 184593394X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Get Book

Book Description
This book is about resource allocation matters with the aim to further development thoughts and models on resource allocation applied to livestock production. It contains 18 chapters divided into 4 parts which discuss resources and resource allocation patterns, trade-offs, metabolic constraints to resource allocation and the process of homeorhesis with a special emphasis to homeorhesis during heat stress; the relationship between food intake and resources allocated to body maintenance, growth, reproduction and the immune response; the consequences of high production efficiency in pigs, poultry and dairy cattle and the consequences of improved production by means of biological engineering and options to include resource allocation matters in the breeding objective, animal welfare and in resource allocation modelling.