Animals and Temperature: Phenotypic and Evolutionary Adaptation

1. Adaptation of biological membranes to temperature: biophysical perspectives and molecular mechanisms
2. Temperature adaptation: molecular aspects
3. Stenotherms and eurytherms: mechanisms establishing thermal optima and tolerance ranges
4. Ecological and evolutionary physiology of stress proteins and 79 the stress response: the Drosophila melanogaster model
5. Temperature adaptation and genetic polymorphism in aquatic animals
6. Phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary adaptations of mitochondria to temperature
7. Temperature and ontogeny in ectotherms: muscle phenotype in fish
8. Ectotherm life-history responses to developmental temperature
9. Testing evolutionary hypotheses of acclimation
10. Experimental investigations of evolutionary adaptation to temperature
11. Thermal evolution of ectotherm body size: why get big in the cold?
12. Physiological correlates of daily torpor in hummingbirds
13. Development of thermoregulation in birds: physiology, interspecific variation and adaptation to climate
14. Evolution of endothermy in mammals, birds and their ancestors
15. The influence of climate change on the distribution and evolution of organisms

Organisms are continually challenged to regulate and maintain functional capacities as their thermal environment changes. Adjustment to temperature change is evident both phenotypically in individual organisms and genotypically in the evolution of species. This volume addresses thermal adaptation by bringing together many of the leading researchers in thermal biology, with backgrounds spanning the disciplines of molecular biology, cell biology, physiology, zoology, ecology and evolutionary biology. The responses of many species to temperature are discussed in depth, through the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, and ecosystem levels. This text stands as an important contribution to the study of temperature adaptation.