Metabolic rate and evaporative water loss are two commonly measured physiological variables. It is therefore important, especially for comparative studies, that these variables (and others) are measured under standardised conditions, of which a resting state during the inactive phase is part of the accepted criteria. Here we show how measurement duration and timing affect these criteria and imp...

Factors that affect water loss rates (WLRs) are poorly known for organisms in natural habitats. Seed-harvester ant queens provide an ideal system for examining such factors because WLRs for mated queens excavated from their incipient nests are twofold to threefold higher than those of alate queens. Indirect data suggest that this increase results from soil particles abrading the cuticle during ...

Evaporation is linearly and inversely related to absolute humidity at 26 degrees to 27 degrees C. The relative rate of loss in desert reptiles, rodents, and anurans is about 1:10:40. The maximum rate of water loss is about 2.5 and 5 times the basal rate, respectively, in pocket mice and sand lizards. The ratio of loss from lung to loss from skin is about 84:16 in kangaroo rats and 70:30 in ratt...

application of edible coating as a way of prolonging the shelf-life of perishable fruits and vegetables is promising. two plum cultivars (stanley and giant) were treated with 1% chitosan and then stored at 0-1oc and relative humidity of 90±5% for 40 days. changes in weight loss, respiration rate, fruit firmness, soluble solid content, titrable acidity, ph, ascorbic acid as well as decay rate we...

Yield-loss models were developed for tobacco infected with Meloidogyne incognita grown in microplots under various irrigation regimes. The rate of relative yield loss per initial nematode density (Pi), where relative yield is a proportion of the value of the harvested leaves in uninfected plants with the same irrigation treatment, was greater under conditions of water stress or with high irriga...

We measured CO2 and H2O release from individual fruit flies from five populations of Drosophila melanogaster selected for resistance to desiccation (D flies). Our previous work found that these flies survive for an extended period in dry air, have an increase in the peak height and frequency of CO2 release, as measured by the standard error of a linear regression (SER) of CO2 release for the en...

A search for the near-infrared water-ice absorption band was made in a number of very red OH/IR stars which are known to exhibit the 10μm silicate absorption. As a by-product, accurate positions of these highly reddened objects are obtained. We derived a dust mass loss rate for each object by modelling the spectral energy distribution and the gas mass loss rate by solving the equation of motion...