• DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-70020-0_5
• Corpus ID: 82984271

Anaerobic Energy Metabolism

@inproceedings{Gde1984AnaerobicEM,
  title={Anaerobic Energy Metabolism},
  author={Gerd G{\"a}de},
  year={1984}
}

• G. Gäde
• Published 1984
• Biology

When considering anaerobic energy metabolism, many people are unaware that it occurs in insects at all. This may be easily explained by the general knowledge that the energy metabolism of insect flight muscles is highly aerobic. It is well-known that insect flight muscles are metabolically the most active tissues known in nature. Their performance can be quite incredible; in some species more than one million successive wingbeats, with rates over 1000 contractions per second, have been found. These repeated contractions of muscles involve oxidative processes for energy provision and, therefore, a very good provision of oxygen. It has been shown, for example, that some blowflies on initiation of flight consume oxygen at a rate of about 3000 µ1 • min-1 g-1;thus, elevating their resting oxygen consumption approximately 100-fold. In comparison, hummingbirds in flight show a respiratory rate five times that at rest. It therefore is not an exaggeration to say that the respiratory rate of certain insects is the most intensly by known in biology. From these few remarks it is evident that insect flight muscles are the tissue of choice to study insect metabolism and its control in detail; concerning this subject the reader is referred to previous reviews (for example, Sacktor 1965,1970,1975) (see also Sec. 4, Chap. 4).