ENGLISH

Ecophysiology of Small Desert Mammals

Book information

Publisher
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year
1997
ISBN
978-3-642-64366-8, 978-3-642-60351-8
DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-60351-8
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
10 MB (10384483 bytes)
Series
Adaptations of Desert Organisms
Edition
1
Pages
296\307
Orientation
yes
Scanned
yes
Time added
2013-08-01 04:00:00

Description

Since small mammals have a large surface to mass ratio, one would expect them to quickly dehydrate and perish at high environmental temperatures. Nonetheless, a large number of small mammal species inhabit deserts. This fascinating phenomenon is investigated by Prof. A. Allan Degen in his book. The majority of small desert mammals are rodents, but shrews of several grams and small foxes of 1 kg are also present. Their survival is due mainly to behavioural adaptations and habitat selection, however, physiological adaptations also contribute to the success. Interestingly, many small mammals that live in different deserts of the world show similarities in their adaptive traits although they have different taxonomic affinities.

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