Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

All animals require oxygen to maintain an aerobic metabolism and ultimately to survive. Nonetheless, there are many situations such as ice-covered lakes, high altitude, and underground burrows, where oxygen is limiting, called hypoxia. Animals possess numerous adaptations for coping with these kinds of environmental stresses. The goal of my research program is to understand how animals control their metabolism and body temperature during times when a high metabolic rate or high body temperature is impossible or inefficient to sustain, such as that seen during hypoxia, hypothermia, hibernation, torpor or sleep. Currently, where this control resides within the body is unknown. Cells and tissues seem to have built-in mechanisms for regulating metabolism, but the role of the nervous system as the control centre is less well known. The widespread adaptations in the animal kingdom for these reduced metabolic states argues for a great need throughout evolution for the development of these alternative physiological strategies for coping with severe environmental conditions. We take a comparative approach, studying animals that have naturally evolved physiological defences for coping with hypoxia. We have been developing research aimed at how animals utilise temperature to alter their metabolic needs. It is well known that cold slows metabolic processes down. It turns out that all animals prefer lower body temperatures and exhibit lower metabolism when faced with hypoxia. How this is controlled physiologically and behaviourally, and why all animals exhibit this response, particularly when hypoxia only occurs in certain environments and times of life, is unknown. Understanding this process will shed light on how animals modify and manipulate metabolic needs, and potentially lead to the development of interventions aimed at altering metabolism and lowering body temperature. In light of the rapid climate changes currently occurring in the environment, a better understanding of the inherent behavioural and physiological means by which animals regulate temperature will also allow us to predict and assess more accurately how and if animals can successfully cope with these changes.