Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physiology
The Deadly Trio: Do warming, acidification & deoxygenation destabilize the anemone-algae symbiosis?
Published: 2024-11-04
Subjects: Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Physiology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences
Anthropogenic climate change is primarily driven by carbon dioxide release, which causes a domino effect of warming, acidification, and hypoxia in aquatic habitats. Using a fully-crossed experimental design, we investigated how exposure to this “deadly trio” of environmental stressors affects the sea anemone, Exaiptasia diaphana and its endosymbiotic dinoflagellates. To mimic conditions found on [...]
Maximum movement performance, not activity levels or thermoregulatory indices, affects survival in a free-ranging ectotherm
Published: 2024-08-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physiology
1. Temperature profoundly influences the distribution and diversity of ectotherms, yet in natural settings, the trade-offs between environmental temperatures, behaviour, physiological function, and how they drive individual survival, remain poorly understood. 2. To address these gaps, we generated field-based thermal performance curves, using temperature-sensitive radio transmitters and [...]
Sexual dimorphism of metabolism in vampire crabs (Geosesarma hagen) is temperature and size-dependent
Published: 2024-07-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
El metabolismo es un vínculo clave entre la fisiología de un organismo y el medio ambiente. La plasticidad en las tasas metabólicas permite a los organismos responder y adaptarse al cambio ambiental. Comprender cómo cambia el metabolismo en respuesta a los aumentos de la temperatura ambiente y cómo estos cambios tendrán efectos diferenciales entre los individuos es un objetivo fundamental. [...]
Genetic variation of heat tolerance in a model ectotherm: an approach using thermal death time curves
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
The assessment of thermal tolerance holds significant importance in predicting the physiological responses of ectotherms, particularly in elucidating their capacity for evolutionary adaptation in the context of global warming. Current approaches to assessing thermal tolerance have limitations that can lead to misleading results, especially with regard to the heritability of thermal limits. [...]
Shrinking body size may not provide meaningful thermoregulatory benefits in a warmer world
Published: 2023-12-13
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
In a recent and impressive analysis of avian morphological data (covering >250 000 male birds from 105 species), Youngflesh et al.1 report that birds breeding in North America have become significantly lighter over the last three decades, coincident with rising breeding season temperatures. Because these observations recapitulate predictions under Bergmann’s Rule (i.e., that the body size of [...]
Tick-tock, racing the clock: Parasitism is associated with decreased sprint performance in the Eastern Fence Lizard
Published: 2023-08-27
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
Host-parasite relationships are important components of ecological systems that influence the evolution of both hosts and parasites. High levels of ectoparasitic infections can disrupt host homeostasis, causing adverse effects on health and performance. However, the effects of natural ectoparasitic levels on host physiology are less understood, with most research designs implementing experimental [...]
Lipid Metabolism in Parasitoids and Parasitized Hosts
Published: 2023-06-30
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Physiology
Parasitoids have an exceptional lifestyle where juvenile development is spent on or in a single host insect, but the adults are free-living. Unlike parasites, parasitoids kill the host. How parasitoids use such a limiting resource, particularly lipids, can affect chances to survive and reproduce. In part 1, we describe the parasitoid lifestyle, including typical developmental strategies. Lipid [...]
Why do some fish grow faster than others?
Published: 2023-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Physiology
All animals must acquire food to grow, but there is a vast diversity in how different species and even different individuals approach and achieve this task. Individuals within a species appear to fall along a bold-shy continuum, whereby some fish acquire food aggressively and with seemingly high risk, while others appear more submissive and opportunistic. Greater food consumption generally [...]
When and how does photoinhibition matter for plant fitness?
Published: 2022-09-13
Subjects: Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The many biophysical factors that shape how plant species sort across environmental gradients may include photoinhibition, which I define broadly as oxidative damage that plants and other phototrophs risk incurring when they absorb excess light energy they cannot safely dissipate. Photoinhibition is seldom explicitly discussed as a potential driver of plant fitness and distributions. Here, I aim [...]
Evolution and impact of socially transferred materials
Published: 2022-05-27
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Cell and Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Physiology, Systems Biology
Since the dawn of life, transfers of metabolized material between individuals have led to great innovations of evolution. When metabolized material is transferred from one individual’s body to another (as with sperm, eggs, milk, symbionts), secondary manipulative molecules that induce a physiological response in the receiver are often transferred along with the primary cargo. The bioactive and [...]
Hematological and Biochemical Reference Intervals of the Visayan Warty Pig in Negros Occidental, Philippines
Published: 2022-03-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Physiology, Zoology
The Visayan warty pig is one of the endemic species of the Philippines that have been listed as "critically endangered." Conservation actions and efforts, such as health assessments, are being carried out to preserve the population. However, there is limited information about the normal hematological and biochemical profile of the species. The study presents reference intervals essential for [...]
Microclimate shifts in nest-boxes and natural cavities before, during and after nesting
Published: 2022-01-17
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physiology, Population Biology
Animals breeding in anthropogenic shelters such as nest-boxes experience nesting environment in which they did not originally evolve. Over the past decades, they are additionally challenged by climate change – a major environmental force influencing their reproductive ecology. Despite the central importance of nesting microclimate for offspring development and fitness, very little is known about [...]
Adaptations and plastic phenotypic responses of marine animals to the environmental challenges of the high intertidal zone
Published: 2022-01-15
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Physiology
The high intertidal zone is home to an incredible variety of marine animals, as it offers an escape from low intertidal/subtidal predation and competition, among other advantages. However, this area of the shore also comes with many tide-driven and emersion-associated environmental stressors, such as desiccation, high temperatures and freezing stress, hypoxia, salinity fluctuations, nitrogenous [...]
Latitudinal but not elevational variation in blood glucose level is linked to life history across passerine birds
Published: 2022-01-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology, Zoology
Macrophysiological research is vital to our understanding of mechanisms underpinning global life history variation and adaptation under diverse environments. Birds represent an important model taxon in this regard, yet our knowledge is limited to only a few physiological traits, mostly studied in temperate and Neotropical species. Here, we examined latitudinal and elevational variation in an [...]
A rapidly expanding house of cards: the silent loss of cell physiology hampers marine biosciences
Published: 2021-11-22
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Physiology, Systems and Integrative Physiology Life Sciences
Perspective: An ongoing loss of expertise on the biochemistry and physiology of marine organisms hampers our understanding of biological mechanisms upon rapidly growing “-omics” approaches reply -ultimately affecting our ability to predict organismal responses to climate change.