Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Mostrar: 20 | 50 | 100
Resultados 1 - 20 de 33
Filtrar
Más filtros










Base de datos
Intervalo de año de publicación
2.
J Therm Biol ; 119: 103762, 2024 Jan.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38071898

RESUMEN

Predicting ecological responses to rapid environmental change has become one of the greatest challenges of modern biology. One of the major hurdles in forecasting these responses is accurately quantifying the thermal environments that organisms experience. The distribution of temperatures available within an organism's habitat is typically measured using data loggers called operative temperature models (OTMs) that are designed to mimic certain properties of heat exchange in the focal organism. The gold standard for OTM construction in studies of terrestrial ectotherms has been the use of copper electroforming which creates anatomically accurate models that equilibrate quickly to ambient thermal conditions. However, electroformed models require the use of caustic chemicals, are often brittle, and their production is expensive and time intensive. This has resulted in many researchers resorting to the use of simplified OTMs that can yield substantial measurement errors. 3D printing offers the prospect of robust, easily replicated, morphologically accurate, and cost-effective OTMs that capture the benefits but alleviate the problems associated with electroforming. Here, we validate the use of OTMs that were 3D printed using several materials across eight lizard species of different body sizes and living in habitats ranging from deserts to tropical forests. We show that 3D printed OTMs have low thermal inertia and predict the live animal's equilibration temperature with high accuracy across a wide range of body sizes and microhabitats. Finally, we developed a free online repository and database of 3D scans (https://www.3dotm.org/) to increase the accessibility of this tool to researchers around the world and facilitate ease of production of 3D printed models. 3D printing of OTMs is generalizable to taxa beyond lizards. If widely adopted, this approach promises greater accuracy and reproducibility in studies of terrestrial thermal ecology and should lead to improved forecasts of the biological impacts of climate change.


Asunto(s)
Regulación de la Temperatura Corporal , Lagartos , Animales , Análisis Costo-Beneficio , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Temperatura Corporal , Temperatura , Ecosistema , Lagartos/fisiología , Impresión Tridimensional
3.
Integr Zool ; 2023 Oct 26.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37884464

RESUMEN

Many species exhibit color polymorphisms which have distinct physiological and behavioral characteristics. However, the consistency of morph trait covariation patterns across species, time, and ecological contexts remains unclear. This trait covariation is especially relevant in the context of invasion biology and urban adaptation. Specifically, physiological traits pertaining to energy maintenance are crucial to fitness, given their immediate ties to individual reproduction, growth, and population establishment. We investigated the physiological traits of Podarcis muralis, a versatile color polymorphic species that thrives in urban environments (including invasive populations in Ohio, USA). We measured five physiological traits (plasma corticosterone and triglycerides, hematocrit, body condition, and field body temperature), which compose an integrated multivariate phenotype. We then tested variation among co-occurring color morphs in the context of establishment in an urban environment. We found that the traits describing physiological status and strategy shifted across the active season in a morph-dependent manner-the white and yellow morphs exhibited clearly different multivariate physiological phenotypes, characterized primarily by differences in plasma corticosterone. This suggests that morphs have different strategies in physiological regulation, the flexibility of which is crucial to urban adaptation. The white-yellow morph exhibited an intermediate phenotype, suggesting an intermediary energy maintenance strategy. Orange morphs also exhibited distinct phenotypes, but the low prevalence of this morph in our study populations precludes clear interpretation. Our work provides insight into how differences among stable polymorphisms exist across axes of the phenotype and how this variation may aid in establishment within novel environments.

4.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol ; 339(10): 1102-1115, 2023 12.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37723946

RESUMEN

The colonization of novel environments requires a favorable response to conditions never, or rarely, encountered in recent evolutionary history. For example, populations colonizing upslope habitats must cope with lower atmospheric pressure at elevation, and thus reduced oxygen availability. The embryo stage in oviparous organisms is particularly susceptible, given its lack of mobility and limited gas exchange via diffusion through the eggshell and membranes. Especially little is known about responses of Lepidosaurian reptiles to reduced oxygen availability. To test the role of physiological plasticity during early development in response to high elevation hypoxia, we performed a transplant experiment with the viperine snake (Natrix maura, Linnaeus 1758). We maintained gravid females originating from low elevation populations (432 m above sea level [ASL]-normoxia) at both the elevation of origin and high elevation (2877 m ASL-extreme high elevation hypoxia; approximately 72% oxygen availability relative to sea level), then incubated egg clutches at both low and high elevation. Regardless of maternal exposure to hypoxia during gestation, embryos incubated at extreme high elevation exhibited altered developmental trajectories of cardiovascular function and metabolism across the incubation period, including a reduction in late-development egg mass. This physiological response may have contributed to the maintenance of similar incubation duration, hatching success, and hatchling body size compared to embryos incubated at low elevation. Nevertheless, after being maintained in hypoxia, juveniles exhibit reduced carbon dioxide production relative to oxygen consumption, suggesting altered energy pathways compared to juveniles maintained in normoxia. These findings highlight the role of physiological plasticity in maintaining rates of survival and fitness-relevant phenotypes in novel environments.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Femenino , Animales , Hipoxia/metabolismo , Oxígeno/metabolismo , Consumo de Oxígeno , Fenómenos Fisiológicos Cardiovasculares
5.
Gen Comp Endocrinol ; 331: 114162, 2023 01 15.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36356645

RESUMEN

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are central mediators of vertebrate responses to intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli. Among the sources of variation in circulating GCs are transgenerational effects mediated by mothers. Here we studied potential maternal effects mediated by GCs on offspring phenotype in a live-bearing reptile, the western terrestrial garter snake (Thamnophis elegans). We evaluated the association between baseline corticosterone (CORT) levels during gestation (i.e., preparturition) in field-captured mothers and 1) reproductive success and offspring sex ratios, 2) birth phenotypic traits of offspring born under common-garden laboratory conditions, and 3) neonate (age 3 months) and juvenile (age 12 months) traits of offspring raised under two thermal regimes ('warm' and 'cool') during their first year of life. Reproductive success and offspring sex ratios were not associated with preparturition maternal CORT, but pregnant snakes with higher CORT levels gave birth to smaller, lighter offspring, which tended to grow faster to age three months. Neonate baseline CORT varied with preparturition maternal CORT in a sex-specific manner (positive trend for females, negative for males). Maternal CORT effects on offspring phenotype were no longer detectable in juveniles at age one year. Instead, juvenile phenotypes were most influenced by rearing environment, with offspring raised under the cool regime showing higher baseline CORT and slower growth than those raised under warmer conditions. Our findings support the notion that offspring phenotype might be continuously adjusted in response to environmental cues -both pre- and post-natal- and that the strength of maternal CORT effects declines as offspring develop and experience unique environmental challenges. Our results contribute to a growing literature on transgenerational effects of hormones and help to fill a gap in our knowledge of these effects in ectothermic amniotes.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Corticosterona , Animales , Femenino , Masculino , Corticosterona/farmacología , Glucocorticoides , Reproducción , Razón de Masculinidad
6.
J Fish Biol ; 101(6): 1628-1633, 2022 Dec.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36134581

RESUMEN

The impacts of relying on stored sperm were evaluated in the sailfin molly, Poecilia latipinna. Females reliant on stored sperm had fewer offspring compared to remated females, but offspring size and short-term growth rate did not differ. Thus, females may use stored sperm in cases such as previous mating with a preferred male, lack of access to mating opportunities during a reproductive cycle, or to maximize egg fertilization. Females do not compensate for producing fewer offspring however, by allocating more resources to offspring relative to their size or initial growth.


Asunto(s)
Poecilia , Femenino , Masculino , Animales , Semen , Reproducción , Espermatozoides
7.
J Therm Biol ; 103: 103166, 2022 Jan.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35027206

RESUMEN

Global warming impacts biodiversity worldwide, leading to species' adaptation, migration, or extinction. The population's persistence depends on the maintenance of essential activities, which is notably driven by phenotypic adaptation to local environments. Metabolic rate - that increases with temperature in ectotherms - is a key physiological proxy for the energy available to fuel individuals' activities. Cold-adapted ectotherms can exhibit a higher resting metabolism than warm-adapted ones to maintain functionality at higher elevations or latitudes, known as the metabolic cold-adaptation hypothesis. How climate change will affect metabolism in species inhabiting contrasting climates (cold or warm) is still a debate. Therefore, it is of high interest to assess the pace of metabolic responses to global warming among populations adapted to highly different baseline climatic conditions. Here, we conducted a physiological experiment in the endemic Pyrenean brook newt (Calotriton asper). We measured a proxy of standard metabolic rate (SMR) along a temperature gradient in individuals sampled among 6 populations located from 550 to 2189 m a.s.l. We demonstrated that SMR increased with temperature, but significantly diverged depending on populations' origins. The baseline and the slope of the relationship between SMR and temperature were both higher for high-elevation populations than for low-elevation populations. We discussed the stronger metabolic response observed in high-elevation populations suggesting a drop of performance in essential life activities for these individuals under current climate change. With the increase of metabolism as the climate warms, the metabolic-cold adaptation strategy selected in the past could compromise the sustainability of cold-adapted populations if short-term evolutionary responses do not allow to offset this evolutionary legacy.


Asunto(s)
Altitud , Regulación de la Temperatura Corporal , Salamandridae/fisiología , Aclimatación , Animales , Temperatura Corporal , Femenino , Calentamiento Global , Masculino , Oxígeno/metabolismo , Salamandridae/metabolismo
8.
Proc Biol Sci ; 289(1967): 20212187, 2022 01 26.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35078358

RESUMEN

Changing climates and severe weather events can affect population viability. Individuals need to buffer such negative fitness consequences through physiological plasticity. Whether certain life-history strategies are more conducive to surviving changing climates is unknown, but theory predicts that strategies prioritizing maintenance and survival over current reproduction should be better able to withstand such change. We tested this hypothesis in a meta-population of garter snakes having naturally occurring variation in life-history strategies. We tested whether slow pace-of-life (POL) animals, that prioritize survival over reproduction, are more resilient than fast POL animals as measured by several physiological biomarkers. From 2006 to 2019, which included two multi-year droughts, baseline and stress-induced reactivity of plasma corticosterone and glucose varied annually with directionalities consistent with life-history theory. Slow POL animals exhibited higher baseline corticosterone and lower baseline glucose, relative to fast POL animals. These patterns were also observed in stress-induced measures; thus, reactivity was equivalent between ecotypes. However, in drought years, measures of corticosterone did not differ between different life histories. Immune cell distribution showed annual variation independent of drought or life history. These persistent physiological patterns form a backdrop to several extirpations of fast POL populations, suggesting a limited physiological toolkit to surviving periods of extreme drought.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Rasgos de la Historia de Vida , Animales , Colubridae/fisiología , Corticosterona , Sequías , Glucosa , Serpientes/fisiología
9.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol ; 337(3): 199-205, 2022 03.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34855309

RESUMEN

Temperature affects nearly every aspect of how organisms interact with and are constrained by their environment. Measures of organismal energetics, such as metabolic rate, are highly temperature-dependent and governed through temperature effects on rates of biochemical reactions. Characterizing the relationships among levels of biological organization can lend insight into how temperature affects whole-organism function. We tested the temperature dependence of cellular oxygen consumption and its relationship to whole-animal metabolic rate in garter snakes (Thamnophis elegans). Additionally, we tested whether thermal responses were linked to shifts in the fuel source oxidized to support metabolism with the use of carbon stable isotopes. Our results demonstrate temperature dependence of metabolic rates across levels of biological organization. Cellular (basal, adenosine triphosphate-linked) and whole-animal rates of respiration increased with temperature but were not correlated within or among individuals, suggesting that variation in whole-animal metabolic rates is not due simply to variation at the cellular level, but rather other interacting factors across scales of biological organization. Counter to trends observed during fasting, elevated temperature did not alter fuel selection (i.e., natural-abundance stable carbon isotope composition in breath, δ13 Cbreath ). This consistency suggests the maintenance and oxidation of a single fuel source supporting metabolism across a broad range of metabolic demands.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Animales , Isótopos de Carbono , Consumo de Oxígeno/fisiología , Respiración , Temperatura
10.
J Exp Biol ; 224(24)2021 12 15.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34761802

RESUMEN

In response to a warming climate, many montane species are shifting upslope to track the emergence of preferred temperatures. Characterizing patterns of variation in metabolic, physiological and thermal traits along an elevational gradient, and the plastic potential of these traits, is necessary to understand current and future responses to abiotic constraints at high elevations, including limited oxygen availability. We performed a transplant experiment with the upslope-colonizing common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) in which we measured nine aspects of thermal physiology and aerobic capacity in lizards from replicate low- (400 m above sea level, ASL) and high-elevation (1700 m ASL) populations. We first measured traits at their elevation of origin and then transplanted half of each group to extreme high elevation (2900 m ASL; above the current elevational range limit of this species), where oxygen availability is reduced by ∼25% relative to sea level. After 3 weeks of acclimation, we again measured these traits in both the transplanted and control groups. The multivariate thermal-metabolic phenotypes of lizards originating from different elevations differed clearly when measured at the elevation of origin. For example, high-elevation lizards are more heat tolerant than their low-elevation counterparts (counter-gradient variation). Yet, these phenotypes converged after exposure to reduced oxygen availability at extreme high elevation, suggesting limited plastic responses under this novel constraint. Our results suggest that high-elevation populations are well suited to their oxygen environments, but that plasticity in the thermal-metabolic phenotype does not pre-adapt these populations to colonize more hypoxic environments at higher elevations.


Asunto(s)
Lagartos , Aclimatación , Adaptación Fisiológica , Altitud , Animales , Hipoxia , Lagartos/fisiología , Fenotipo
11.
J Hered ; 112(6): 508-518, 2021 11 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34351393

RESUMEN

Many animal species exhibit multiple paternity, defined as multiple males genetically contributing to a single female reproductive event, such as a clutch or litter. Although this phenomenon is well documented across a broad range of taxa, the underlying causes and consequences remain poorly understood. For example, it is unclear how multiple paternity correlates with life-history strategies. Furthermore, males and females may differ in mating strategies and these patterns may shift with ecological context and life-history variation. Here, we take advantage of natural life-history variation in garter snakes (Thamnophis elegans) to address these questions in a robust field setting where populations have diverged along a slow-to-fast life-history continuum. We determine both female (observed) and male (using molecular markers) reproductive success in replicate populations of 2 life-history strategies. We find that despite dramatic differences in annual female reproductive output: 1) females of both life-history ecotypes average 1.5 sires per litter and equivalent proportions of multiply-sired litters, whereas 2) males from the slow-living ecotype experience greater reproductive skew and greater variance in reproductive success relative to males from the fast-living ecotype males despite having equivalent average reproductive success. Together, these results indicate strong intrasexual competition among males, particularly in the fast-paced life-history ecotype. We discuss these results in the context of competing hypotheses for multiple paternity related to population density, resource variability, and life-history strategy.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Animales , Ecotipo , Femenino , Masculino , Paternidad , Reproducción/genética , Conducta Sexual Animal
12.
Gen Comp Endocrinol ; 307: 113758, 2021 06 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33771532

RESUMEN

Characterizing the physiological response to prolonged cold exposure is essential for understanding the maintenance of long-term energy balance. As part of their natural life cycle, temperate ectotherms are often exposed to seasonal variation in temperatures, including extended periods of cold well below their activity range. Relatively little is known about variation in physiological responses as vertebrate ectotherms enter and exit brumation in response to sustained cold temperatures. We tested the influence of temperature on physiology before, during, and after a simulated brumation in the checkered garter snake (Thamnophis marcianus), a widespread ectothermic vertebrate. We tested for the relative effect of immediate temperature and physiological context (entering or exiting brumation) on hormones regulating energy balance, indicators of energy availability, and resting metabolic rate (V̇O2). Plasma corticosterone, glucose, and insulin, as well as immune cell heterophil: lymphocyte ratios responded to temperature, though they did so with different thermal response curves. Thermal sensitivity varied both among and within physiological measures depending on whether animals were going into or coming out of brumation. Additionally, V̇O2 was regulated beyond simple temperature-dependence, whereby post-brumation measures were depressed relative to pre-brumation measures at the same temperature. This pattern was characterized by a change in the temperature coefficient (Q10), with a larger pre-brumation Q10, suggesting reduced thermal sensitivity of metabolic rate following a period of extended cold exposure. The integrated physiological response presented here demonstrates not only temperature dependence across physiological axes, but seasonal variation in thermal responsiveness. Our results suggest that energy allocation decisions and hormonal regulation of underlying processes promote differing levels of thermal sensitivity when entering or exiting brumation.


Asunto(s)
Frío , Colubridae , Animales , Corticosterona , Estaciones del Año , Temperatura
13.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol ; 335(1): 5-12, 2021 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33544981

RESUMEN

Two themes emerging from the special issue "Beyond CTMAX and CTMIN : Advances in Studying the Thermal Limits of Reptiles and Amphibians" are: (1) the need to identify mechanisms that determine the shape of thermal performance curves and (2) how these curves can be best used predictively.


Asunto(s)
Anfibios/fisiología , Reptiles/fisiología , Temperatura , Adaptación Fisiológica , Animales , Evolución Biológica , Regulación de la Temperatura Corporal , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales , Femenino , Estadios del Ciclo de Vida , Masculino
14.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol ; 335(1): 173-194, 2021 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32970931

RESUMEN

Ectothermic animals, such as amphibians and reptiles, are particularly sensitive to rapidly warming global temperatures. One response in these organisms may be to evolve aspects of their thermal physiology. If this response is adaptive and can occur on the appropriate time scale, it may facilitate population or species persistence in the changed environments. However, thermal physiological traits have classically been thought to evolve too slowly to keep pace with environmental change in longer-lived vertebrates. Even as empirical work of the mid-20th century offers mixed support for conservatism in thermal physiological traits, the generalization of low evolutionary potential in thermal traits is commonly invoked. Here, we revisit this hypothesis to better understand the mechanisms guiding the timing and patterns of physiological evolution. Characterizing the potential interactions among evolution, plasticity, behavior, and ontogenetic shifts in thermal physiology is critical for accurate prediction of how organisms will respond to our rapidly warming world. Recent work provides evidence that thermal physiological traits are not as evolutionarily rigid as once believed, with many examples of divergence in several aspects of thermal physiology at multiple phylogenetic scales. However, slow rates of evolution are often still observed, particularly at the warm end of the thermal performance curve. Furthermore, the context-specificity of many responses makes broad generalizations about the potential evolvability of traits tenuous. We outline potential factors and considerations that require closer scrutiny to understand and predict reptile and amphibian evolutionary responses to climate change, particularly regarding the underlying genetic architecture facilitating or limiting thermal evolution.


Asunto(s)
Adaptación Fisiológica , Anfibios/fisiología , Regulación de la Temperatura Corporal/fisiología , Reptiles/fisiología , Animales
15.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol ; 335(1): 13-44, 2021 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32638552

RESUMEN

Research on the thermal ecology and physiology of free-living organisms is accelerating as scientists and managers recognize the urgency of the global biodiversity crisis brought on by climate change. As ectotherms, temperature fundamentally affects most aspects of the lives of amphibians and reptiles, making them excellent models for studying how animals are impacted by changing temperatures. As research on this group of organisms accelerates, it is essential to maintain consistent and optimal methodology so that results can be compared across groups and over time. This review addresses the utility of reptiles and amphibians as model organisms for thermal studies by reviewing the best practices for research on their thermal ecology and physiology, and by highlighting key studies that have advanced the field with new and improved methods. We end by presenting several areas where reptiles and amphibians show great promise for further advancing our understanding of how temperature relations between organisms and their environments are impacted by global climate change.


Asunto(s)
Anfibios/fisiología , Temperatura Corporal/fisiología , Ecosistema , Reptiles/fisiología , Anfibios/embriología , Anfibios/crecimiento & desarrollo , Animales , Embrión no Mamífero/fisiología , Monitoreo Fisiológico , Reptiles/embriología , Reptiles/crecimiento & desarrollo
16.
Integr Zool ; 15(6): 544-557, 2020 Nov.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32649806

RESUMEN

Climate change is generating range shifts in many organisms, notably along the elevational gradient in mountainous environments. However, moving up in elevation exposes organisms to lower oxygen availability, which may reduce the successful reproduction and development of oviparous organisms. To test this possibility in an upward-colonizing species, we artificially incubated developing embryos of the viperine snake (Natrix maura) using a split-clutch design, in conditions of extreme high elevation (hypoxia at 2877 m above sea level; 72% sea-level equivalent O2 availability) or low elevation (control group; i.e. normoxia at 436 m above sea level). Hatching success did not differ between the two treatments. Embryos developing at extreme high elevation had higher heart rates and hatched earlier, resulting in hatchlings that were smaller in body size and slower swimmers compared to their siblings incubated at lower elevation. Furthermore, post-hatching reciprocal transplant of juveniles showed that snakes which developed at extreme high elevation, when transferred back to low elevation, did not recover full performance compared to their siblings from the low elevation incubation treatment. These results suggest that incubation at extreme high elevation, including the effects of hypoxia, will not prevent oviparous ectotherms from producing viable young, but may pose significant physiological challenges on developing offspring in ovo. These early-life performance limitations imposed by extreme high elevation could have negative consequences on adult phenotypes, including on fitness-related traits.


Asunto(s)
Altitud , Colubridae/embriología , Oxígeno , Adaptación Fisiológica , Animales , Tamaño Corporal , Colubridae/fisiología , Embrión no Mamífero/fisiología , Desarrollo Embrionario/fisiología , Femenino , Frecuencia Cardíaca , Masculino , Natación/fisiología
17.
Exp Gerontol ; 137: 110967, 2020 08.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32387125

RESUMEN

As a pacesetter for physiological processes, variation in metabolic rate can determine the shape of energetic trade-offs and thereby drive variation in life-history traits. In turn, such variation in metabolic performance and life-histories can have profound consequences for lifespan and lifetime fitness. Thus, the extent to which metabolic rate variation is due to phenotypic plasticity or fixed genetic differences among individuals or populations is likely to be shaped by natural selection. Here, we first present a generalized framework describing the central role of mitochondria in processes linking environmental, genomic, physiological, and aging variation. We then present a test of these relationships in an exemplary system: populations of garter snakes (Thamnophis elegans) exhibiting contrasting life-history strategies - fast-growing, early-reproducing, and fast-aging (FA) versus slow-growing, late-reproducing, and slow-aging (SA). Previous work has characterized divergences in mitochondrial function, reactive oxygen species processing, and whole-organism metabolic rate between these contrasting life-history ecotypes. Here, we report new data on cellular respiration and mitochondrial genomics and synthesize these results with previous work. We test hypotheses about the causes and implications of mitochondrial genome variation within this generalized framework. First, we demonstrate that snakes of the FA ecotype increase cellular metabolic rate across their lifespan, while the opposite pattern holds for SA snakes, implying that reduced energetic throughput is associated with a longer life. Second, we show that variants in mitochondrial genomes are segregating across the landscape in a manner suggesting selection on the physiological consequences of this variation in habitats varying in temperature, food availability, and rates of predation. Third, we demonstrate functional variation in whole-organism metabolic rate related to these mitochondrial genome sequence variants. With this synthesis of numerous datasets, we are able to further characterize how variation across levels of biological organization interact within this generalized framework and how this has resulted in the emergence of distinct life-history ecotypes that vary in their rates of aging and lifespan.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Envejecimiento/genética , Animales , Genómica , Humanos , Longevidad/genética , Mitocondrias/genética
18.
J Anim Ecol ; 89(8): 1883-1894, 2020 08.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32472604

RESUMEN

An understudied aspect of vertebrate ecoimmunology has been the relative contributions of environmental factors (E), genetic background (G) and their interaction (G × E) in shaping immune development and function. Environmental temperature is known to affect many aspects of immune function and alterations in temperature regimes have been implicated in emergent disease outbreaks, making it a critical environmental factor to study in the context of immune phenotype determinants of wild animals. We assessed the relative influences of environmental temperature, genetic background and their interaction on first-year development of innate and adaptive immune defences of captive-born garter snakes Thamnophis elegans using a reciprocal transplant laboratory experiment. We used a full-factorial design with snakes from two divergent life-history ecotypes, which are known to differ in immune function in their native habitats, raised under conditions mimicking the natural thermal regime-that is, warmer and cooler-of each habitat. Genetic background (ecotype) and thermal regime influenced innate and adaptive immune parameters of snakes, but in an immune-component specific manner. We found some evidence of G × E interactions but no indication of adaptive plasticity with respect to thermal environment. At the individual level, the effects of thermal environment on resource allocation decisions varied between the fast- and the slow-paced life-history ecotypes. Under warmer conditions, which increased food consumption of individuals in both ecotypes, the former invested mostly in growth, whereas the latter invested more evenly between growth and immune development. Overall, immune parameters were highly flexible, but results suggest that other environmental factors are likely more important than temperature per se in driving the ecotype differences in immunity previously documented in the snakes under field conditions. Our results also add to the understanding of investment in immune development and growth during early postnatal life under different thermal environments. Our finding of immune-component specific patterns strongly cautions against oversimplification of the highly complex immune system in ecoimmunological studies. In conjunction, these results deepen our understanding of the degree of immunological flexibility wild animals present, information that is ever more vital in the context of rapid global environmental change.


Asunto(s)
Colubridae , Animales , Ecosistema , Antecedentes Genéticos , Crecimiento y Desarrollo , Temperatura
19.
Integr Comp Biol ; 60(1): 70-78, 2020 07 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32058560

RESUMEN

The stress phenotype is multivariate. Recent advances have broadened our understanding beyond characterizing the stress response in a single dimension. Simultaneously, the toolbox available to ecophysiologists has expanded greatly in recent years, allowing the measurement of multiple biomarkers from an individual at a single point in time. Yet these advances-in our conceptual understanding and available methodologies-have not yet been combined in a unifying multivariate statistical framework. Here, we offer a brief review of the multivariate stress phenotype and describe a general statistical approach for analysis using nonparametric multivariate analysis of variance with residual randomization in permutation procedures (RRPP) implemented using the "RRPP" package in R. We also provide an example illustrating the novel insights that can be gained from a holistic multivariate approach to stress and provide a tutorial for how we analyzed these data, including annotated R code and a guide to interpretation of outputs (Online Appendix 1). We hope that this statistical methodology will provide a quantitative framework facilitating the unification of our theoretical understanding and empirical observations into a quantitative, multivariate theory of stress.


Asunto(s)
Ecología/métodos , Fenotipo , Fisiología/métodos , Estrés Fisiológico , Modelos Estadísticos , Análisis Multivariante
20.
J Exp Biol ; 222(Pt 14)2019 07 19.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31235506

RESUMEN

Increased global temperatures have opened previously inhospitable habitats, such as at higher elevations. However, the reduction of oxygen partial pressure with increase in elevation represents an important physiological constraint that may limit colonization of such habitats, even if the thermal niche is appropriate. To test the mechanisms underlying the response to ecologically relevant levels of hypoxia, we performed a translocation experiment with the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis), a widespread European lizard amenable to establishing populations outside its natural range. We investigated the impacts of hypoxia on the oxygen physiology and reproductive output of gravid common wall lizards and the subsequent development and morphology of their offspring. Lowland females transplanted to high elevations increased their haematocrit and haemoglobin concentration within days and maintained routine metabolism compared with lizards kept at native elevations. However, transplanted lizards suffered from increased reactive oxygen metabolite production near the oviposition date, suggesting a cost of reproduction at high elevation. Transplanted females and females native to different elevations did not differ in reproductive output (clutch size, egg mass, relative clutch mass or embryonic stage at oviposition) or in post-oviposition body condition. Developing embryos reduced heart rates and prolonged incubation times at high elevations within the native range and at extreme high elevations beyond the current range, but this reduced oxygen availability did not affect metabolic rate, hatching success or hatchling size. These results suggest that this opportunistic colonizer is capable of successfully responding to novel environmental constraints in these important life-history stages.


Asunto(s)
Altitud , Desarrollo Embrionario/fisiología , Lagartos/fisiología , Oxígeno/fisiología , Fenotipo , Animales , Embrión no Mamífero/fisiología , Femenino , Francia , Lagartos/crecimiento & desarrollo , Reproducción
SELECCIÓN DE REFERENCIAS
DETALLE DE LA BÚSQUEDA
...