ÉTUDE DE L'ACCLIMATION THERMIQUE CHEZ LA LIMACE ARION CIRCUMSCRIPTUS

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Slugs of the species Arion circumscriptus were acclimated to temperatures of 5°, 8° 10°, 20°, and 25 °C respectively. After acclimation, metabolic rate was determined, either as oxygen consumption, at 30° and 20°, or by direct calorimetry, at 25° and 12.5°, At all given exposure temperatures, the average metabolic rate was lower, by 1% to 1.5%, for each degree of increase in the acclimation temperature. When the logarithms of total O2 consumption or heat production per hour are plotted against the logarithms of body weight, the regression line obtained for slugs acclimated to heat stands below that obtained for slugs acclimated to cold; the slope is also slighter for the warm-acclimated slugs than for the cold-acclimated, so that the distance between corresponding points of two such curves is larger in the righthand side of the graph, where the large specimens are represented, than in the lefthand side where the small specimens are shown. This would imply that an increase in the acclimation temperature reduces metabolic rate to a proportionately greater extent in the larger specimens than it does in the smaller ones. The value of the slope, which is inversely correlated with acclimation temperature, is also inversely correlated with the experimental temperature at which metabolism is determined.