A combined field and laboratory study was conducted to assess the biological implications of the basking habit in turtles. The effect of light intensity and incidence angle, water and air temperatures, wind, and cloud cover upon rates of heat gain in turtles were investigated, and all were found to have importance. Biological factors of importance are behavior, shape, weight, and rarely, color; sex and species were not important except as they affect the other factors. A series of motivation studies was conducted to identify the environmental factors initiating and directing basking. The taxonomic incidence of the basking habit in turtles is discussed. Basking serves primarily as a method of thermal control, with secondary benefits in drying of the skin and shell.

Animals, including humans, have evolved in the context of exposure to a variety of microbial organisms present in the environment. Only recently have humans, and some animals, begun to spend a significant amount of time in enclosed artificial environments, rather than in the more natural spaces in which most of evolution took place. The consequences of this radical change in lifestyle likely extend to the microbes residing in and on our bodies and may have important implications for health and disease. A full characterization of host-microbe sharing in both closed and open environments will provide crucial information that may enable the improvement of health in humans and in captive animals, both of which experience a greater incidence of disease (including chronic illness) than counterparts living under more ecologically natural conditions.

No abstract

No abstract

In response to atmospheres containing decreasing amounts of oxygen, snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) maintained a fairly constant oxygen uptake. Their heart rate increased and the period of apnea between breathing cycles decreased. Small animals had a slightly greater mean uptake per gram than those five to ten times as large.