by Meredith Rutledge
Physiological ecology asks questions about the chemical and physical mechanisms that organisms use in order to survive environmental factors or that they use when interacting with their own ecosystems. It is important to understand how organisms interact with their ecosystems when we live in an ever-changing biosphere. Data collected pertaining to physiological ecology tends to lean more towards the empirical nature of data, meaning data that is collected or obtained through experimentation or observation. By understanding the mechanisms by which organisms interact with their environment, this understanding can be applied to explaining why migrations of species occur and why certain species are located in the geographical location that they inhabit.
Salamanders are our ecological indicators, making their study crucial to understanding environmental disturbance that surround us, such as chemical pollution and global climate change. Plethodontid’s most distinct feature is their lunglessness. There skin is only minimally resistant to water loss in order to exchange gases with the environment, this minimal resistance to water loss also burdens them by being very sensitive to the environment that surrounds them. The fact that salamanders have not evolved in many cases is there best adaptation. By remaining lung less that are able to maintain a low metabolic rate. By being able to maintain a low metabolic rate plethodontids have the ability to go for extended periods of time without feeding when conditions are unfavorable to foraging. This means that plethodontids ability to avoid predators is increased, because in order to subsist only on plethodontids the predator must be able to maintain a diet that is able to be as infrequent as the plethodontids. This is impossible for the majority of predators so their primary source of food cannot come only from the plethodontids. The world of physiological ecology in the context of plethodontids has so much room for further experimentation and research, we have only begun to scratch the surface of these amazing lungless creatures, whose wide and varied population continues to astound us with their survival rate and ability to live in a variety of habitats.
Physiological ecology asks questions about the chemical and physical mechanisms that organisms use in order to survive environmental factors or that they use when interacting with their own ecosystems. It is important to understand how organisms interact with their ecosystems when we live in an ever-changing biosphere. Data collected pertaining to physiological ecology tends to lean more towards the empirical nature of data, meaning data that is collected or obtained through experimentation or observation. By understanding the mechanisms by which organisms interact with their environment, this understanding can be applied to explaining why migrations of species occur and why certain species are located in the geographical location that they inhabit.
Salamanders are our ecological indicators, making their study crucial to understanding environmental disturbance that surround us, such as chemical pollution and global climate change. Plethodontid’s most distinct feature is their lunglessness. There skin is only minimally resistant to water loss in order to exchange gases with the environment, this minimal resistance to water loss also burdens them by being very sensitive to the environment that surrounds them. The fact that salamanders have not evolved in many cases is there best adaptation. By remaining lung less that are able to maintain a low metabolic rate. By being able to maintain a low metabolic rate plethodontids have the ability to go for extended periods of time without feeding when conditions are unfavorable to foraging. This means that plethodontids ability to avoid predators is increased, because in order to subsist only on plethodontids the predator must be able to maintain a diet that is able to be as infrequent as the plethodontids. This is impossible for the majority of predators so their primary source of food cannot come only from the plethodontids. The world of physiological ecology in the context of plethodontids has so much room for further experimentation and research, we have only begun to scratch the surface of these amazing lungless creatures, whose wide and varied population continues to astound us with their survival rate and ability to live in a variety of habitats.