Physiological ecology in small mammals and evolutionary theory

The theme of animal physiological ecology(or ecological physiology) is the adaptation of animals to their environment. Physiological ecologists usually use the physiological data to understand the ecological questions relevant to ani-mals'survival and reproduction,and try to interpret the way and reason of animal's physiological adaptation and evolution. For nearly 70 years,evolutionary theory has great effect on the development of physiological ecology,and the findings of physiological ecology also make great contributions to the development of evolutionary biology. Here we focus on some aspects of physiological ecology of small mammals,namely body size and metabolism,digestive physiology,ecological immunology and hibernation(torpor) ,to briefly review some achievements and the implication of evolutionary theory.