Mice, Mice, Baby: The Effect of Cold Temperature on the Metabolic Rate of Mice

Abstract

Extreme temperatures, particularly extreme cold, affects all endothermic homeotherms in a similar way: increased metabolic rate (Gillooly et al. 2001). We hypothesized that the metabolic rate of mice would increase with increasingly cold temperatures because of the need to maintain homeostasis (Martinez and Karasov 2010). We tested this by running three different temperature range tests (a room temperature trial, an extremely cold temperature range trial, and a medium-cold temperature range trial) and measuring the CO₂ during those times. Our results showed that the coldest temperatures yielded the greatest CO₂ output, therefore a higher metabolic rate of the mouse. This data supports our hypothesis.