Question

Explain why cold-blooded organisms like reptiles have a higher rate of secondary productivity than warm-blooded mammals.

Answer 1

Lower metabolic rate in cold blooded animals help them to exhibit higher rate of secondary productivity.

Step-by-step explanation:

The rate of biomass accumulation, that is, secondary productivity depends on the metabolic rate of organisms. The cold-blooded animals exhibit hibernation and estivation under unfavorable climatic conditions. They slow down their metabolic rate and do not use metabolic energy to maintain constant body temperature. Hence, they can store most of the food eaten in the form of biomass.

On the other hand, warm-blooded animals use metabolic energy to maintain constant body temperature. They use nutrients to produce heat for it. Hence, they accumulate only a little part of the nutrients in the form of biomass (lower secondary productivity).

Answer 2

Warm-blooded creatures, like mammals and birds, try to keep the inside of their bodies at a constant temperature. They do this by generating their own heat when they are in a cooler environment, and by cooling themselves when they are in a hotter environment. To generate heat, warm-blooded animals convert the food that they eat into energy. They have to eat a lot of food, compared with cold-blooded animals, to maintain a constant body temperature. Only a small amount of the food that a warm-blooded animal eats is converted into body mass. The rest is used to fuel a constant body temperature.