Introduction

As the name implies, evolutionary physiology represents the hybridization of two scientific disciplines that had previously witnessed relatively little interchange. According to the review by Garland and Carter (1994), evolutionary physiology arose in the late 1970s, following "heated" debates concerning the metabolic and thermoregulatory status of dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles. This period was followed by attempts in the early 1980s to integrate quantitative genetics into evolutionary biology, which had spill-over effects on other fields, such as behavioral ecology and ecophysiology. In the mid- to late-1980s, phylogenetic comparative methods started to became popular in many fields, including physiological ecology and comparative physiology. An influential 1987 volume titled "New Directions in Ecological Physiology" (reference below) had little ecology but a considerable emphasis on evolutionary topics. It generated vigorous debate, and within a few years the National Science Foundation had developed a panel titled Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology. Orders Saurischia    Sauropodomorpha    Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs are giant reptiles that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for most of their 165-million year existence. ... Mammal-like reptiles is a term used to describe the prehistoric animals that appear to be the reptilian ancestors of mammals. ... Quantitative genetics is the study of continuous traits (such as height or weight) and its underlying mechanisms. ... Evolutionary biology is a subfield of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. ... Behavioral ecology is the study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior, and the roles of behavior in enabling an animal to adapt to its environment (both intrinsic and extrinsic). ... Ecophysiology or environmental physiology is a biological discipline which studies the adaptation of organisms physiology to environmental conditions. ... The logo of the National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. ...

Evolutionary physiology today

Natural and sexual selection are often presumed to act most directly on behavior (e.g., what an animal chooses to do when confronted by a predator), which is expressed within limits set by whole-organism performance abilities (e.g., how fast it can run) that are determined by subordinate traits (e.g., muscle fiber-type composition). A weakness of this conceptual and operational model is the absence of an explicit recognition of the place of life history traits.

Although young, evolutionary physiology is a widely recognized subdiscipline within both physiology and evolutionary biology. Unlike the fields of ecophysiology and comparative physiology, no textbook has yet been published. Modern practitioners come from a variety of backgrounds, including various types of physiology, ecology, genetics, and evolutionary biology. Accordingly, the range of phenotypes encompassed by evolutionary physiology is extraordinarily broad, ranging from life history, behavior, and whole-organism performance through biomechanics, anatomy, physiology, endocrinology, and biochemistry. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Ability is one of the many ilities. ... A hierarchy (in Greek hieros = sacred, arkho = rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things. ... In biology, a trait or character is a genetically inherited feature of an organism. ... A concept is an abstract, universal psychical entity that serves to designate a category or class of entities, events or relations. ... Operational denotes a working method or a philosophy that focuses principally on cause and effect of specific interest to a particular domain at a particular point in time. ... Look up model in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... If something is explicit, it generally leaves nothing to the imagination. ... Life history refers to a variety of methods and techniques that are used for conducting qualitative interviews. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, an important early achievement in the study of physiology. ... Evolutionary biology is a subfield of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. ... Ecophysiology or environmental physiology is a biological discipline which studies the adaptation of organisms physiology to environmental conditions. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, an important early achievement in the study of physiology. ... Ernst Haeckel coined the term oekologie in 1866. ... For a non-technical introduction to the topic, please see Introduction to genetics. ... Evolutionary biology is a subfield of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. ... The phenotype of an individual organism is either its total physical appearance and constitution, or a specific manifestation of a trait, such as size or eye color, that varies between individuals. ... Life history refers to a variety of methods and techniques that are used for conducting qualitative interviews. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Anatomical drawing of the human muscles from the Encyclopédie. ... Endocrinology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the endocrine system and its specific secretions called hormones. ... Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes and transformations in living organisms. ...

Important areas of current research include:

• Organismal performance as a central phenotype
• The role of behavior in physiological evolution
• The physiological and endocrinological basis of variaiton in life history traits (e.g., clutch size)
• The extent to which species differences are adaptive
• The physiological underpinnings of limits to geographic ranges
• The role of sexual selection in shaping physiological evolution
• The magnitude of "phylogenetic signal" in physiological traits
• The role of pathogens and parasites in physiological evolution and immunity
• Application of optimality modeling to elucidate the degree of adaptation
• The role of phenotypic plasticity in accounting for species differences
• The mechanistic basis of trade-offs and constraints on evolution
• The origin of allometric scaling relations or allometric laws (and the so-called metabolic theory of ecology)
• Individual variation (see also Individual differences psychology)
• Functional significance of biochemical polymorphisms
• Analysis of physiological variation via quantitative genetics
• Paleophysiology and the evolution of endothermy
• Human adaptational physiology
• Darwinian medicine

In the United States, research in evolutionary physiology is funded mainly by the National Science Foundation. A number of scientific societies feature sections that encompass evolutionary physiology, including: Individuals in the mollusk species Donax variabilis show diverse coloration and patterning in their phenotypes. ... For the Pet Shop Boys album of the same name see Behaviour Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. ... Life history refers to a variety of methods and techniques that are used for conducting qualitative interviews. ... A limit can be: Limit (mathematics), including: Limit of a function Limit of a sequence Net (topology) Limit (category theory) A constraint (mathematical, physical, economical, legal, etc. ... Illustration from The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin showing the Tufted Coquette Lophornis ornatus, female on left, ornamented male on right. ... A pathogen (literally birth of pain from the Greek παθογένεια) is a biological agent that can cause disease to its host. ... A parasite is an organism that lives in or on the living tissue of a host organism at the expense of it. ... In a medical sense, immunity is a state of having sufficient biological defenses to avoid infection, disease, or other unwanted biological invasion. ... We dont have an article called Phenotypic plasticity Start this article Search for Phenotypic plasticity in. ... A constraint is a limitation of possibilities. ... Metabolic rate may relate to organismal temperature and dimensions Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute, including ecologists James Brown, Brian Enquist, Jamie Gillooly and physicist Geoffrey West, helped to develop the metabolic theory of ecology. ... Individual differences psychology studies the ways in which individual people differ in their behavior. ... In general, polymorphism describes multiple possible states for a single property (it is said to be polymorphic, or polymorphous). ... Quantitative genetics is the study of continuous traits (such as height or weight) and its underlying mechanisms. ... In chemistry, an endothermic reaction is one that requires heat to break the bonds of the reactants. ... Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man or knowing man) under the family Hominidae (the great apes). ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, an important early achievement in the study of physiology. ... Evolutionary medicine or Darwinian medicine is a perspective on medicine derived through applying evolutionary theory. ... The logo of the National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. ...

• American Physiological Society
• Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
• Society for Experimental Biology

Some journals that frequently publish articles in evolutionary physiology

• American Naturalist
• Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology
• Ecology
• Evolution
• Functional Ecology
• Integrative and Comparative Biology
• Journal of Comparative Physiology
• Journal of Evolutionary Biochemistry and Physiology
• Journal of Experimental Biology
• Physiological and Biochemical Zoology

American Naturalist is a monthly scientific journal, founded in 1867, and associated with the University of Chicago. ...

Further reading

• Angilletta, M. J., Jr., P. H. Niewiarowski, and C. A. Navas. 2002. The evolution of thermal physiology in ectotherms. Journal of Thermal Biology 27:249-268.
• Berenbrink, M., P. Koldkjær, O. Kepp, and A. R. Cossins. 2005. Evolution of oxygen secretion in fishes and the emergence of a complex physiological system. Science 307:1752-1757.
• Bradley, T. J., and W. Zamer. 1999. Introduction to the Symposium: What is evolutionary physiology? American Zoologist 39:321-322.
• Burggren, W. W., and W. E. Bemis. 1990. Studying physiological evolution: paradigms and pitfalls. Pages 191-238 in M. H. Nitecki, ed. Evolutionary innovations. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago.
• Calow, P., ed. 1987. Evolutionary physiological ecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 239 pp.
• Diamond, J. M. 1993. Evolutionary physiology. Pages 89-111 in C. A. R. Boyd and D. Noble, eds. The logic of life: the challenge of integrative physiology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Dudley, R., and C. Gans. 1991. A critique of symmorphosis and optimality models in physiology. Physiological Zoology 64:627-637.
• Feder, M. E., A. F. Bennett, and R. B. Huey. 2000. Evolutionary physiology. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 31:315-341. PDF
• Feder, M. E., A. F. Bennett, W. W. Burggren, and R. B. Huey, eds. 1987. New directions in ecological physiology. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York. 364 pp. Catalog listing
• Garland, T., Jr., and S. C. Adolph. 1994. Why not to do two-species comparative studies: limitations on inferring adaptation. Physiological Zoology 67:797-828. PDF
• Garland, T., Jr., and P. A. Carter. 1994. Evolutionary physiology. Annual Review of Physiology 56:579-621. PDF
• Gilmour, K. M., R. W. Wilson, and K. A. Sloman. 2005. The integration of behaviour into comparative physiology. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 78:669-678.
• Hochachka, P. W., and G. N. Somero. 2002. Biochemical adaptation — mechanism and process in physiological evolution. Oxford University Press. 478 pp. Catalog listing
• Mangum, C. P., and P. W. Hochachka. 1998. New directions in comparative physiology and biochemistry: mechanisms, adaptations, and evolution. Physiological Zoology 71:471-484.
• Mottishaw, P. D., S. J. Thornton, and P. W. Hochachka. 1999. The diving response mechanism and its surprising evolutionary path in seals and sealions. American Zoologist 39:434-450.
• Natochin, Y. V., and T. V. Chernigovskaya. 1997. Evolutionary physiology: History, principles. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A 118:63-79.
• Nunn, C. L., and S. M Altizer. 2006. Infectious diseases in primates: behavior, ecology and evolution. Oxford University Press (Series in Ecology and Evolution). Catalog Listing
• Swallow, J. G., and T. Garland, Jr. 2005. Selection experiments as a tool in evolutionary and comparative physiology: insights into complex traits - An introduction to the symposium. Integrative and Comparative Biology 45:387-390. PDF
• Vogel, S. 2003. Comparative biomechanics: life's physical world. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford. xii + 580 pp. Catalog listing

See also

• Allometry
• Comparative physiology
• Darwinian medicine
• Ecophysiology
• Evolutionary psychology
• Experimental evolution
• Human physiology
• I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry
• Krogh Principle
• Metabolic theory of ecology
• Phenotypic plasticity
• Phylogenetic comparative methods
• Physiology
• Raymond B. Huey
• Thrifty phenotype

Allometry is the science studying the differential growth rates of the parts of a living organisms body part or process. ... Evolutionary medicine or Darwinian medicine is a perspective on medicine derived through applying evolutionary theory. ... Ecophysiology or environmental physiology is a biological discipline which studies the adaptation of organisms physiology to environmental conditions. ... Evolutionary psychology (abbreviated ev-psych or EP) is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain certain mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as evolved adaptations, i. ... In evolutionary biology, the field of experimental evolution is concerned with testing the theory of evolution in controlled experiments. ... Human physiology is the science of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of normal humans or human tissues or organs. ... Metabolic rate may relate to organismal temperature and dimensions Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute, including ecologists James Brown, Brian Enquist, Jamie Gillooly and physicist Geoffrey West, helped to develop the metabolic theory of ecology. ... We dont have an article called Phenotypic plasticity Start this article Search for Phenotypic plasticity in. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, an important early achievement in the study of physiology. ...

External links

• Laboratories that study evolutionary physiology
  
  
• Albert F. Bennett reprints
• Mark A. Chappell reprints
• Martin E. Feder reprints
• Theodore Garland, Jr. reprints
• Raymond B. Huey reprints
• Marek Konarzewski reprints
• Carol E. Lee reprints
• Jonathan B. Losos reprints
• James H. Marden reprints
• Andrew E. McKechnie reprints
• Jay F. Storz reprints
• Michael B. Thompson reprints
• Peter C. Wainwright reprints
• Mark W. Westneat reprints
• Craig R. White reprints
• Joseph B. Williams reprints
  
  
• Developmental physiology
• Natural History columns on biomechanics