Introduction to Ecophysiology

Introduction to Ecophysiology

• Ecophysiology studies how organisms' physiological processes interact with their environment.
• It bridges organismal physiology and ecology.
• It investigates how organisms adapt to various environmental factors.
• The goal is to understand mechanisms behind organismal responses to their environment.
• This connects organism's internal processes (physiology) with external pressures (ecology).

Key Environmental Factors Studied

• Temperature: How organisms regulate internal temperature in varying external temperatures, using metabolic adjustments, behavioral changes, or physical adaptations.
• Water availability: How organisms conserve or obtain water in different moisture conditions, employing strategies for water uptake, retention, and excretion.
• Light: How organisms utilize light for photosynthesis (plants) or photoreception, including light's effect on circadian rhythms and other physiological processes.
• Nutrients: Understanding uptake and utilization of essential nutrients from the environment, including nutrient cycling and competition for limited resources.
• Salinity: Investigating how organisms cope with varying salinity levels, including osmoregulation and ion balance.
• pH: Understanding organismal responses to acidity and alkalinity fluctuations, and their impact on survival.

Key Physiological Processes Studied

• Respiration: How organisms exchange gases with the environment and how respiration rates respond to environmental variations.
• Photosynthesis: Investigating how photosynthetic rate changes with light intensity, temperature, and CO2 levels (in plants).
• Metabolism: Investigating the rates of metabolic processes and their environmental influences.
• Osmoregulation: Maintaining water and electrolyte balance in various water conditions.
• Growth and reproduction: How environmental conditions affect organism growth rate and reproductive cycles.
• Migration: How animals use physiological and behavioral adaptations for movement across environments.
• Defense mechanisms: How organisms develop responses to challenges like disease risk and predation.

Ecophysiological Adaptations

• Acclimation: Short-term physiological adjustments to environmental changes (e.g., temperature).
• Adaptation: Long-term evolutionary changes in physiology or morphology for better survival in a specific environment.
• Acclimation and adaptation are studied considering evolutionary history and current environmental influences.

Applications of Ecophysiology

• Predicting organismal responses to environmental change: Understanding how species respond to climate change or other disturbances.
• Managing endangered species: Understanding physiological constraints for better conservation strategies and habitat management of endangered species.
• Developing sustainable agriculture: Improving farming methods by learning about plant physiology related to nutrient uptake and water use.
• Conservation biology: Examining organismal adaptations and responses to environmental changes to inform conservation efforts.
• Pest management: Knowledge of pest physiological responses and environmental interactions for effective pest control.

Example Research Questions in Ecophysiology

• How does a plant species' photosynthetic rate change with increasing temperature?
• What behavioral and physiological adaptations do desert animals have for extreme aridity?
• How do different fish species regulate internal water balance in varying salinity environments?

Interdisciplinary Nature of Ecophysiology

• Ecophysiology combines knowledge from physiology, ecology, genetics, biochemistry, and evolutionary biology.
• It's a multidisciplinary field using different perspectives to understand organismal responses to their environment.
• Ecophysiology employs a systems approach to investigate interaction of elements within an organism and their environment.