The aim of physiology is to understand how living organisms function, how they interact with their environment, and why they have evolved the way they have. These functional studies are needed to understand the distribution of animals and plants and are important to predict effects of climate change, toxic substances, diseases. Physiology is also essential to understand how bacteria and plants can be used for sewage treatment or destruction of waste materials. Many of our ecophysiological studies deal with the special evolutionary adaptations that allow living organisms to survive natural stressors such as cold, heat, drought, and low oxygen levels: The physiological research of the Department is conducted at different levels of organization from experiments on individual cells in the laboratory to studies of large free-living animals in the wild. As examples, we study, how can bacteria survive in boiling water, how whales can dive to 2 km depth and hold their breath for an hour, how giraffes can live with the world's highest blood pressure without getting stroke, and how trees move water up into their foliage?

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