Document Type

Honors Thesis

Major

Zoology

Advisor(s)

Danielle Levesque

Committee Members

Brian McGill, Gail Schwieterman, Melissa Ladenheim, Eric Brown

Graduation Year

May 2024

Publication Date

Spring 5-2024

Abstract

The study of mammalian energetics focuses on the complex connections between metabolic rate, body temperature, thermoregulation, and much more. Knowledge of mammalian energetics is skewed towards temperate endotherms, making assumptions about energetics biased towards the more studied temperate species. However, tropical endotherms live in environments that are quite different from temperate endotherms, resulting in differences in heat exchange between the endotherm and the environment. To understand how the different dynamic created between ambient temperature and thermoregulation impacts energetics in the tropics, I compare two species of tropical mammals, one with nighttime activity, the western tarsier (Cephalopachus bancanus), and one with daytime activity, the large treeshrew (Tupaia tana). Using a mechanistic, niche-based modeling program, I model basal metabolic rate for both species. I compare the effect of altering their core temperature range to reflect homeothermy and heterothermy and compare these models to the experimental data. The model that included the level of heterothermy previously observed in these two species produced a better fitting model than the homeothermy model for both species. However, there are areas for improvement for both the model’s employment of evaporative water loss and in expanding physiological knowledge about these two species such as fur and sweating characteristics.

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