Relation of oxygen consumption to size and temperature in desert arthropods

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Abstract
1. Oxygen consumption was determined for ninety‐three taxa of desert‐inhabiting arthropods of various life stages over the temperature range 10–40d̀C. Regression analysis of O2 consumed/individual/h on the mean dry weight of individual adult insects yielded a slope of 0.70 (r= 0.87) while the same analysis for non‐insect arthropods gave a slope of 0.74 (r ‐ 0.87).2. Average Q10 for all insects was 2.16 ± 0.66 over the 10–40d̀C temperature range. Q10was not significantly different among orders of arthropods at each 10d̀ temperature interval but decreased significantly with an increase in temperature.3. Per cent water content ranged from a mean of 60% for Coleoptera to 78% for Lepidoptera larvae and indicated the necessity of using dry weight values in analyses of the relationship between size and oxygen consumption rates.4. Models are supplied for each taxon to calculate the minimum energy for basic metabolism of field populations per unit time and area.