Here are some things I can learn through video shows, adaptations of animal to mountain environments long winter, short summer and thin air. Animal living in the mountains have evolved special adaptations that increase their survival and reproduction in these environments. Life on mountains for animals can be very harsh. Food is scarce and the climate is very cold. Many animals have adapted to survive the bitter cold. These adaptations may be morphological, behavioural or physiological. And species have usually adapted some combination of all three types of strategies. Animal need to be able to maintain their internal temperatures, despite dramatic changes in ambient environmental temperature. If body temperatures goes outside of an acceptable range. Enzymes in cells will not be able to perform chemical reactions. And if the contains of cell freeze. Ice crystals can form inside the cell which will damage cellular structures. So, regulating body temperature is really important. The process that allows animals to maintain body temperature is called thermoregulation. It’s controlled by negative feedback system, similar to how a thermostat works. If nerve cells detect shifts in the body temperature outside of the normal range. They send a message to the brain to initiate a corrective response. Thermoregulation is achieved in different ways by actotherms and endotherms. Ectotherms are animals that primarily regulate their temperatures using external sources of heat.Endotherms create most of their heat from metabolic processes. Mammals and birds are typically endothermic while amphibians. Exothermic reptilies,fish and endothermic invertebrates, are edothermic. When you think of cold adaptation in animals, one obvious strategy that comes to mind is fur and feather. Hair and feathers insulate animals by trapping a blanket of warm air near. The skin and hollow hairs or feathers can amplify the effect. Just like pubescence on plants fur and feathers act as insulation to retain head and reduce convective cooling. Many animals in the alpine also have lower surface area relative to their mass, giving them a stocky appearance. A smaller surface area helps animals retain body heat. They’re recognizable by their short appendages relative to similar animals adapted to lower elevations. 

However, for some smaller alpine dwelling animals. It may be advantageous to have an increased surface area. For example, the wing size of flying insects is often proportionally greater in high altitude populations so they can cope with the thinner air encountered during flight. For actively flying insects, wing loading will be higher at greater elevations. So these populations are subjected to stronger selection for wings with an increased surface area. For example, in male of the fly drosophila flavopilosa in Chile, both wing length and breadth are increased with elevation. Finally, some alpines animals have darker coloration at the higher elevations in order to absorb more solar radioactive heat. This warms their flight muscles. For exothermic insects, it can be advantageous to adjust body temperature through thermal basking and selection for specific spectral reflectance and absorbance properties of the body surface. 

And the ones that are lighter are further down. Where there’s actually a cost sometimes to heating up too much. Climate change has a lot of effects on butterflies. It affects their distributions because some of the butterflies that were found further south in the mountains. And the rockier are no longer found there. And they’re now found more frequently further north. Climate change I would expect will also have changes in the distribution within a mountain. You’re going to found particular, especially dark and hairy butterflies found higher up on the mountain. And of cause there is always the danger that they get squeezed off the top of the mountain and that; and the end of them. And it’s easy to document that there are real changes that have happened during that time.Behavioral adaptation concerns hour-to-hour, day to day and even seasonal choices made by animals that actively contribute to temperature. Ectotherms are very capable of surviving at the range of temperature. But since they’re not able to regulate their internal heat production, they rely on behavioural adaptations to keep their temperature within best normal range. Ectotherms rely on external production o heat. So they often have periods of inactivity. 

Those are correlated with cooler temperatures. When their internal temperatures drops, their enzymes become less effective and their metabolism decreases. Small ectotherms that are highly susceptible to heat loss, due to their relatively large surface area, rely heavily on microclimates to survive the harsh alpine conditions. For example recall that interior of cushion plants are often favorable.microclimates that can host a variety of invertebrate species, And pollinators may be found seeking refuge from the clad inside flowers. One species of rock dwelling lizard in the genius.Phymaturus that thrives at elevations above 40000 meters in the Andes is a good example of how animals can use behaviour responses to adapt to cold temperatures. At night the lizard burrows underground where the soul provides insulation from cold night. In the morning, the lizard emerges from its burrow and generates heat by basking in the sun, which can increase its internal temperature to 30 degrees Celsius, even it ambient temperatures are around freezing. Extreme low temperature during winter is also a challenge for endothermic organism in alpine regions. Some animals opt to avoid them all together by moving to less exposed areas. Large mammals such as big horn sheep migrate to lower elevations during the winters, while birds migrate to lower latitudes. 

Small alpine animals migrate less frequently because they would require relatively high energy expenditure. However, movement over shorter distances between microclimates can be a remarkably effective way for animals to thermoregulation.  Collared pikas minimize their exposure to extreme ambient temperatures by seeking shelter in piles of boulders adjacent to alpine meadows. Boulders provide protection from the sun, wind and fluctuations in air temperature. In both summer and winter pikas use these sheltered places o help maintain their own thermal equilibrium. In contrast to behavioural and morphological adaptations, physiological adaptations are involuntary, passive responses that are internally regulated. Physiological adaptations that are used to warm animal can be categorized into two groups. The first involves heat conservation while the second involves heat generation. First, let’s consider three different physiological adaptations in alpine animals that reduce the rate at which they lose heat to the environment. One way animals can conserve heat is by raising their fur to increase the barrier of warm air that provides insulation. The reaction called piloerection. Is an involuntary reflex by muscles contractions near the surface of the skin.Piloerection may seem like a small thing but it can be effective? 

In fact despite having lost most of the hair that covered our ancestors, the involuntary response is still present humans and is what produces Goosebumps. Secondly at low temperature, blood vessels near the skin decrease in diameter in a process call vasoconstriction. By reducing the amount of heat through surface the body. Vasoconstriction restricts heat transfer to the environment. Vasoconstriction is the reason that people appear pale when they’re cold. The third physiological adaptation that helps alpine animal conserve heat is counter current heat exchange. The adaptation involves a special arrangement in the circulatory system. Whereby arteries that carry warm blood to the extremities run parallel and in close proximity to veins the return blood to the trunk of the body. The temperature gradient created by the counter current flow causes. Heat in arterial blood to be progressively transferred to cooler venous blood. This means that arterial blood is substantially cooler. When it reaches the body’s extremities so less heat is lost to the environment. All organism produce heat as by product of metabolism, but endotherms have adaptations that amplify their internal heat production under cold conditions in a process called thermo genesis.

Once way that thermo genesis can occur is through shivering, produced by small involuntary contractions of skeletal muscles. Shivering is both common in both birds and mammals. Contras, non shivering thermo genesis involves the release of a hormone. That increases an animals’ metabolic rule and is found mostly in mammals. Although none shivering thermo genesis can take place through the body. Alpine species especially those that hibernate. Often have a tissue called brown fat that’s specialized for heat generation. Brown fat stores are important source of heat during periods of hibernation. Many animals spend the short summer at high elevations gathering energy and resources to build up insulating fat that allows them to survive the winter. Increased insulation can also achieved by growing additional layers of hair or feathers, or seeking shelter in burrows. Hibernation is an adaptation that saves animals energy by reducing their. Hibernation is a type of long term torpor. Which is a state of low metabolic rate and decreased body temperature. During hibernation the heart rate and breathing is substantially reduced. For example a marmot’s heart rate drops from 180 to 200 beats per minute. To only 28 to 38 beats per minute during hibernation. And their respiratory rate decreases from 60 breaths per minute to 1 to 2 breaths per minute. 

Hibernation is not the same as hypothermia. Because hibernating animals readjust their set point for temperature, essentially establishing a new lower temperature limit. Temperature continues to be regulated by a negative feedback system so that if the temperature drops below the set point, thermogenesis is initiated. Ectotherms can’t hibernate in the same way but many spriest are capable of over wintering under extreme conditions. Some insects that live at high elevations adapt to cold temperatures using super cooling a process where water cools below its freezing point without changing phase into a solid. Remarkably without a source for nucleation or forming crystals. Water can cool to below minus 40 degrees Celsius without freezing. Some species produce unique carbohydrates and amino acids before winter, which helps prevent their cells from freezing. One of those carbohydrates, propylene glycol is the same chemical used in automotive antifreeze.

 These cryoprotectants protect tissues from freezing and can prevent some of the adverse effects of extreme low temperatures, others species are considered freezing tolerant and can survive ice formation within their tissues.  However, lower temperature are lethal alpine animas not only have adaptations to survive cold winters but they also have adaptations that enable them to thermoregulation during warm summers. Animals can dissipate heat through heat exchange surfaces and evaporative cooling. Heat exchange surfaces accelerate heat loss through specialized appendages like ears. These appendages facilitate the transfer of heat from the animal to the environment because they have a high surface area with blood vessels close to the surface and are often only lightly insulated.Although alpine animals have heat exchange surfaces, the relative surface areas of these appendages lend to be smaller than those of animals in warmer environments. Because large heat exchange surfaces would detrimentally affect their ability to retain heat .Evaporative cooling can help animals keep cool through the evaporation of water from the body. The can be accomplished either through sweating or parting. Swathing is passive process relying on air currents to remove water secreted by sweat glands onto the skin. Panting is an active process in which animals produce air currents to remove water across respiratory system surfaces. So far, we have mostly considered ways in which alpine animals have adapted to temperature extremes. But alpine animals have also adapted to other environmental conditions in mountains, including unstable terrain unproductive habitats and low oxygen levels. Many mountain dwelling animals including goat and yak have specialized hooves that allow them safely and defiantly navigate sleep and rocky mountain terrain. These hooves combine a hard outer edge with a soft inner pad that provides cushioning for jumping between racks. The structure of the hooves helps animals grip rocks and resist slipping. Mountain animals have adapted to the unproductive nature of their terrain where food supplies are sparse. For example mountain sheep like other ungulates have a multi-chambered stomach that allows them to increase the amount of nutrients. Extracted from the hard dry vegetation that forms their diet. 

A result they can eat almost any type of vegetation reducing the amount of line spent searching for food. Some species can also consume large amounts of vegetation quickly and then retreats to protected areas away from predators. Where they can safely re chew and digest their food. Many alpine animals also have unique adaptations that allow them to survive low oxygen levels at high elevations. They tend to have large hearts and lungs and more blood cells to carry oxygen.  They have the highest concentration of red blood cells of all mammals and the process of binding and transporting oxygen in their blood using haemoglobin is very efficient.

The mountains are a challenging environment, with steep cliffs and barren rocks, sparse vegetation and extremes of temperature. And yet they are home to many species of animal and bird, which are well adapted to survive there. Winter is an especially difficult time, as food becomes scarce, and the snow makes it harder to move around. At that time of year, the most important thing is to save energy. So many animals reduce their activity to the bare minimum: looking for food. The remainder of the time they simply stay still – or in the most extreme case, like the marmot, they hibernate. In conclusion, each animal has special features to adapt to different seasons or areas.

The above video shows that thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. The opposite condition, when body temperature decreases below normal levels, is known as hypothermia. It results when the homeostatic control mechanisms of heat within the body malfunction, causing the body to lose heat faster than producing it. Normal body temperature is around 37 °C (99 °F), and hypothermia sets in when the core body temperature gets lower than 35 °C (95 °F). Usually caused by prolonged exposure to cold temperatures, hypothermia is usually treated by methods that attempt to raise the body temperature back to a normal range.