Reference no: EM133369214

Assignment:

Answer the following questions:

1. Compare and contrast endothermy and ectothermy. Does behavioral thermoregulation play a role in both of these mechanisms? Explain.

2. The authors state the following in their paper:

Many ectotherms use behavioral tactics (such as sun-seeking and shade-seeking) to maintain their body temperatures within selected bounds. Behavioral thermoregulation requires an ability to detect spatial thermal heterogeneity and to move to favorable sites. Accordingly, biologists have assumed that the (immobile) embryonic stage cannot thermoregulate behaviorally.

a. Evaluate the passage above to determine the specific characteristics of embryos that biologists assume to provide a barrier to behavioral thermoregulation. Explain.

b. Write a scientific question that the authors of this paper likely proposed at the beginning of their investigation. Then write two statements that provide alternative hypotheses that answer this question and that form the basis for the experiment that the authors carried out.

3. The investigation was designed to test the researchers' hypotheses. Evaluate some aspects of their experimental design to determine strengths and weaknesses in their approach.

a. Explain why it was important for the researchers to begin their investigation by measuring the temperature at different points on the surface of a turtle egg when it was exposed to an external heat source in only one direction.

b. Analyze Figure 2 from the paper. Which data function as a control set? Which data function as an experimental set? Do the error bars add important information that assists in drawing a conclusion from the data? Explain your answers.

c. Explain why the researchers ran a series of tests using turtle eggs buried in an outdoor set of nests when they had already run a series of laboratory tests. Did running the outdoor series strengthen or weaken their conclusion? Explain.