QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s):
Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by HOLDGATE, M. W. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by HOLDGATE, M. W.

Journal of Experimental Biology 33,107-118 (1956)
Published by Company of Biologists 1956

Transpiration Through the Cuticles of Some Aquatic Insects

M. W. HOLDGATE ¹

¹ Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge

1. Measurement of the rate of water loss in dry air from ten species of aquatic insects, representing six orders, has shown that the cuticles are in all cases more permeable than are those of typical terrestrial species. There is, however, a wide range of permeability within the group.

2. The rate of water loss increases exponentially with temperature. There is no ‘critical temperature’. The steepness of the exponential relating transpiration and temperature is greatest in the least permeable examples.

3. Chloroform treatment produces a marked increase in water loss, but abrasion by mineral dusts has very little effect.

4. Adult specimens of ‘Notonecta obliqua’ immersed in distilled water gain weight at a rate which suggests that the cuticle is comparatively permeable under these conditions also. The rate of water uptake is increased by chloroform treatment.

5. The results support the general theory advanced by Holdgate and Seal (1955), but no sound interpretation of the structural basis of cuticular permeability can yet be advanced.