Physiological Basis of Metabolism and Activity: The Thermal Dependence of Muscle Function

温度是一个重要的环境变量，直接影响生物功能的各个层面。尽管进行了多年的研究，但我们对温度如何影响生物体的了解仍然粗略，特别是在最大行为能力方面。这项研究将首次全面研究体温如何影响鱼类的爆裂逃逸和摄食能力。这些可能是确保自然种群成功生存、生长和繁殖的重要行为，但我们不知道温度的快速变化可能会如何影响这些能力。此外，这将是第一次研究这些行为在长期温度暴露(驯化)过程中的可塑性。这项研究还将开始研究遗传结构(倍性水平)如何影响适应能力，正如之前其他工作者所假设的那样。这项研究还将研究一组鱼对不同温度的进化反应，其中一些类群的热环境非常狭窄，而另一些类群的热环境非常宽。这些类型的信息，即了解动物在生物和进化时间范围内如何对急性和长期温度暴露做出反应，对于渔业管理(例如，水温对自然界种群表现的可能影响以及这些种群在长期温度暴露下调整表现的能力)和我们对鱼类种群如何适应范围扩大或气候变化的理解都很重要。

Temperature is an important environmental variable that directly influences all levels of biological function. In spite of years of study, our knowledge of how temperature affects organisms is still sketchy, especially in terms of maximal behavioral capacities. This study will be the first comprehensive examination of how body temperature influences burst escape and feeding capacities in fish. These are probably important behaviors ensuring successful survival, growth, and reproduction in natural populations, but we do not understand how rapid changes in temperature may affect these capacities. Further, it will be the first study to examine the plasticity of the of these behaviors during long term temperature exposure (acclimation). The study will also begin to examine how genetic structure (ploidy level) may influence acclimation ability, as previously hypothesized by other workers. This study will also examine evolutionary responses to different temperatures in a group of fish, some taxa of which have very narrow and others very broad thermal environments. These types of information, that is, understanding of how animals respond to acute and long term temperature exposure, in both organismal and evolutionary time frames, is important to both fisheries management (e.g., likely effects of water temperature on stock performance in nature and the ability of those stocks to adjust performance over longer term temperature exposure) and to our understanding of how fish populations may adjust to range extension or climate change.