Question

HELP PLEASE!!!!!!

The bar-tailed godwit is a type of shorebird that makes an annual migration from Alaska to New Zealand and back. The birds make each 11,500-kilometer (7,145-mile) trip by flying over the Pacific Ocean in about nine days, depending on weather, wind speed, and direction of travel. One bird was observed to make the entire journey uninterrupted, a feat that is comparable to a human running a nonstop seven-day marathon at 70 kilometers per hour (43.5 miles per hour). Would you expect the flight (breast) muscles of bar-tailed godwits to use mainly aerobic respiration or fermentation? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

They probably use aerobic respiration.

Step-by-step explanation:

A travel distance of 11.500 kilometers in 9 days covered by flying surely requires a lot of energy.

• If cells are fermenting, the ATP (energy) they generate only comes from glycolysis, which produces 2 ATP molecules.

• If they are using aerobic respiration, glucose is completely oxidized to CO₂ through glycolysis and the Citric Acid Cycle, and the electrons enter the electron transport chain to finally reduce oxygen into water. In the complete process, up to 36 ATP molecules are produced.

In sum, aerobic respiration is much more efficient to generate energy than fermentation, so it's probably the main metabolism of the flight muscles in bar-tailed godwits.