Oxygen Consumption in Mighty Metabolic Mice

Abstract

Our topic is oxygen consumption rate in mice in different climates. We tackled this by seeing if different environmental temperatures did or did not affect the mice’s metabolic rates. We put three mice, each in three different temperatures and we measured their oxygen consumption rate using an O₂ Gas Sensor. We found that the mice’s metabolic rate increased as the temperature decreased which is unlike a normal endotherm that would increase its metabolic rate whenever it is outside of its thermal neutral zone. We found this to be different than most endotherms whose metabolic rate increases whenever it is outside of their thermal neutral zone (Porter, 2009).