ABSTRACT
Many small mammals, birds and ectothermic organisms living in temperate climates undergo pronounced seasonal changes in their thermal physiology. As body lipid composition changes in response to diet and also in response to temperature acclimation, the interrelations between dietary fatty acid composition and thermal physiology have recently attracted some attention. This chapter reviews how dietary fatty acids influence patterns of torpor in hibernating mammals, patterns of daily torpor in mammals and behavioural thermoregulation ectothermic lizards. Furthermore, diet-induced changes in fatty acid composition of tissues and cellular membranes are reported and it was examined whether these are correlated with changes in thermal physiology. Studies on the effect of dietary fatty acids on hibernation in mammals have been undertaken by a number of researchers. The parallel changes of thermal physiology of heterothermic mammals and ectothermic lizards and the fatty acid composition of tissues and mitochondrial membranes raise the question if and how compositional and physiological differences may be linked.
