This award will support collaborative research between Dr. David S. Hinds of California State University at Bakersfield and Dr. R. V. Baudinette of The Flinders University of South Australia. This research is to measure maximum metabolism, as well as the ratio of maximum to minimum metabolism in marsupial species during treadmill locomotion and exposure to cold. The results will be compared with data from placental mammals. The research tests the hypothesis that maximum metabolism during locomotion in placental mammals will be elevated above that in response to cold, but not to the extent observed in marsupials. The findings will provide insight into the maximum performance abilities of mammals generally regarded as the most evolutionarily conservators of living mammals and exhibiting many of the attributes of ancestral mammals. The project continues the excellent and productive collaboration between the Australian group and its interest in thermoregulation in marsupials and the Hinds work on metabolism in birds, monotremes, marsupials, and eutherians. This is important fundamental work on the absorption of heat and cold by mammals, as well as having potential for major advances in comparative physiology and evolution.
