Symposium: Adaptations for Life at High Altitudes. Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, January 3-8, 2005, San Diego, CA Douglas L. Altshuler, California Institute of Technology
This symposium brings together speakers from diverse backgrounds to address the challenges imposed by high elevations on the physiological capacity of organisms. Elevational gradients represent useful natural experiments that exhibit substantial changes over very short distances in numerous environmental parameters, including the partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide, air density, wind velocity, and solar incidence. In addition to containing elevational belts that may constrain physiological performance, mountains also include isolated habitats within which populations can diverge and speciation can ultimately occur. This combination of features makes elevational gradients ideal for studying the effects of climate change on species diversity, and in many cases decline in abundance can be linked to mechanistic responses to temperature change. Substantial reduction in oxygen availability at high elevation is a feature which affects all organisms, and numerous physiological studies have revealed an immense diversity of anatomical and respiratory adaptations across taxa, and even among isolated populations of the same species, including humans. Decreases in air density have been demonstrated to influence the morphology, aerodynamics, and energetics of flight in both insects and birds. In low-density air, higher lift must be produced for both steady and unsteady flight modes when compared to low elevations. Combined environmental changes across elevation influence physiological performance synergistically, but have nonetheless been mostly investigated in isolation. Accordingly, the intention of the organizers of this symposium is to stimulate the comparative study of high-elevation biology combining both taxonomic and mechanistic breadth. This symposium is very appropriate for the membership of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, which now emphasizes broader and evolutionary perspectives on diverse biological phenomena. Annual meetings of this society are well attended by graduate students and postdocs who will have the opportunity to hear and interact with those working in this exciting field of comparative biology. This award will support the participation of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in this symposium.
