Heat Production and Temperature Regulation

Abstract

Heat production is a side product of metabolic processes, the continuous occurrence of which provides the energy basis of life. This heat production necessarily increases the temperature of an organism above that of the environment. In the majority of the members of the animal kingdom, the metabolic rate does not allow an increase in body temperature of more than some 1/10 of a degree (bradymetabolism). In all these animals, body temperature shows wide fluctuations that depend on changes in the environmental temperature; they are therefore called Poikilothermic animals.