Taking Physiology to the Field: An Introduction to the Symposium

Over the past decades, comparative and ecological physiologists have successfully described many won- drous ways in which organisms are specialized for life in a variety of habitats. However, most of these inves- tigations were done in the laboratory, where both an- imals and their environments are under control and manipulable. An important focus of contemporary comparative and ecological physiology is to explore physiological function under natural conditions with ecological con- text in mind. The impetus for this has come from two directions. First, advances in technology and method- ology have provided opportunities for addressing an ever-expanding array of physiological questions in wild animals. Second, conceptual advances have in- spired new sorts of questions, and an understanding of physiology in the field continues to contribute to the deepening interplay between physiologists, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists. ETHODOLOGICAL ADVANCES Methodological advances include both the develop- ment of new technologies and the application of exist- ing approaches to new questions. Implanted transmitters that relay information about body temperature and heart rate have been used for many years in free-living ani- mals. However, these approaches continue to be refined