Biology: metabolic cost

Self-tutoring about biology and zoology: the tutor researches American alligators.

Alligators in southern Florida typically develop more slowly than those of northern Florida. A suggested reason is metabolic cost.

Being cold-blooded, an alligator’s metabolism increases with the surrounding temperature. Therefore, an alligator in a hotter environment consumes more energy than it would in a cooler one: to a cold-blooded creature, higher temperature means higher metabolic cost.

Perhaps because of higher metabolic cost, the alligators of southern Florida, compared with their northern counterparts, have less spare energy to develop, so they do so more slowly.

Source:

srelherp.uga.edu

etd.fcla.edu