A repository for metabolic rate-related analyses
In normoxia, approximately ~95-98% of oxygen consumption in vertebrate animals yields ATP which organisms use to power critical life processes and maintain themselves against the effects of the second law of thermodynamics. Hypoxia (environmental oxygen limitation) challenges the capacity of vertebrate animals to meet the energy requirements of maintaining form and function against the effects of the second law. Organisms vary considerably in their capacity to meet ATP demand in hypoxia through increased efficiency of oxidative phosphorylation, increased rates of substrate-level phosphorylation, metabolic suppression, or a combination of all three.
Though maintenance of oxidative phosphorylation to lower levels of environmental oxygen availability is the most sustainable option, variation in the capacity for substrate-level phosphorylation and metabolic suppression limit the predictive ability of oxygen consumption-based metrics of hypoxia tolerance, such as Pcrit. Compounding this problem is our limited knowledge of the physiological and biochemical underpinnings of Pcrit on metabolic responses of organisms. Specifically, what are the time domains of responses to exposure to such levels of hypoxia, and how plastic are these traits?
This repository contains analyses of responses in marine ectotherms to oxygen limitation under various additional environmental constraints - such as high temperature or acidified, high PCO2 water. This is a repository in-progress, and I expect to add many analyses to it moving forward.
| Name | Status | Institution | Favorite study organism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derek | Graduate student | University of British Columbia | Sculpins! |