Metabolism

Abstract

The means by which divers achieve breath-hold durations of foraging and prolonged dives are not understood. Emphasis on possible regulators of the breath-hold often reflects the bias of the author. My concern has been primarily with oxygen. In Chapter 4 I reviewed the quantity of the store, and in Chapter 8 its utilization by muscle. Now I will discuss overall consumption of oxygen $({\dot{M}_{{{O_2}}}})$, also expressed as the metabolic rate (MR), or frequently converted to total energy metabolism. My special interest in oxygen is its relationship to the breath-hold.