BURGGREN, W.W.; Univ. of North Texas: How Developing Animals Ignore Physiological Dogma

Ecological physiology is replete with time-honored guiding principles that have emerged precisely because they seem so universal in their application (e.g. allometric determination of physiological rates; linkage of function to form; size-dependent need for convective blood transport; acclimitization to environmental change, etc.). Yet, data and conclusions emerging from the burgeoning field of developmental physiology increasingly challenge the conventional wisdom. Indeed, study after study is showing that the “rules of system physiology”, derived from decades of physiological investigation specifically on adults, in fact only poorly apply (or in some cases are not even applicable) to developing animals undergoing differentiation, organogenesis and growth in what may often be unique environments. Using metabolic, cardiovascular, and respiratory physiological examples, this presentation challenges the conventional ecological and environmental physiological dogma that tends to treat developing animals as just “little adults”. What emerges from this analysis is not unconditional rejection of long-standing physiological dogma, but rather – ironically – the need for additional sophistication of our guiding principles in order to understand these seemingly simplest of animals.