Despite a huge range in lung size between species, there is little measured difference in the
ability of the lung to provide a well-matched air flow (ventilation) to blood flow (perfusion) at …

Lungs evolved to increase diffusing capacity by compartmentalizing and reducing the size of
individual gas exchange units. This increased the potential for gas exchange limitations from …

Gravity and matched airway/vascular tree geometries are both hypothesized to be key
contributors to ventilation-perfusion (V̇/Q̇) matching in the lung, but their relative …

The trachea in the giraffe is long but narrow, and dead space ventilation is considered to be
of approximately the same size as in other mammals. Less is known about the matching …

Some 300 million yrs ago, the ancestors of modern reptiles emerged from water and were
committed to air breathing. They were exothermic and incapable of sustained levels of high …

Mechanisms explaining unidirectional pulmonary airflow in birds, a condition where lung
gases flow in a consistent direction during both inspiration and expiration in some parts of …

Two selective pressures have shaped the evolution of the pulmonary circulation. First, as
animals evolved from heterothermic ectotherms to homeothermic endoderms with their …

Why write another small book on respiratory physiology? I have a dozen or so texts on my
bookshelf that could already be used interchangeably to teach the subject. For profit, I might …

Closed respirometry is a commonly used method to measure gas exchange in animals due
to its apparent simplicity. Typically, the rates of O 2 uptake and CO 2 excretion (V˙ O2 and V˙ …

Ventilation is at the origin of a spending of energy coming from air circulation in the
bronchial tree and from the mechanical resistance of the tissue to motion. Both amplitude …