Agenda

Respirometry is a powerful methodology that allows to monitor the energy expenditure of a living organism at rest or in activity from the measure of its gas exchanges with the environment, i.e., 02 uptake rate or CO2 production rate. Although respirometry can be applied to all sorts of animals, I will focus in my talk on chamber respirometry, which is mostly used to measure the gas exchanges of small organisms such as insects and small vertebrates. First, I will describe the different equipment components of a chamber respirometric system. Second, I will explain its functioning principles and the different methodologies that can be used to study gas exchanges in chamber respirometry. Finally, I will draw from the literature to illustrate with a few examples the diversity of research questions that can be tackled with respirometry.