aestivation

In this study, we focused on TRPV1 of African lungfish, Protopterus annectens. During drought at high temperature, African lungfish can survive by undergoing into aestivation in mud cocoons. Therefore, lungfish is considered to have some specialized heat-sensor, TRPV1, for heat tolerance. Further, lungfish which shares similarities with fishes and amphibians, is one of important species for investigating the fish-tetrapod transition. Since fish TRPV1 and tetrapod TRPV1 have some differences, character of lungfish TRPV1 attracts attention...

How malaria mosquitoes persist during the dry season in the Sahel and rapidly rebound at the onset of rains is unclear. Recently, Faiman and colleagues demonstrated that aestivation, a summer dormancy mechanism, is a major persistence strategy of Anopheles mosquitoes, which could be targeted by vector control.

Thermal performance curves for development are an essential tool for population modeling and pest management. More broadly, they characterize how selection on thermal limits or maximum rates change with life stage. The effects of temperature on development of Mormon cricket embryos, and hatching and development of nymphs were measured on a population from the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming and modeled with four non-linear equations. Taylor's Gaussian curve characterized embryonic development, which was most rapid at 26...

This commentary acknowledges the contributions of the Ukrainian biologist, Dr. Volodymyr Lushchak, to the understanding of the physiological adaptive strategy called "Preparation for Oxidative Stress" (POS). In the 1990s, various studies revealed that activities of antioxidant enzymes rose in animals under hypometabolic conditions. These timely observations allowed scientists to propose that this increase could prepare animals for reoxygenation events following the release of oxygen restriction, but in doing so, would trigger oxidative damage, hence the use of the term "preparation"...

Many insects inhabiting temperate climates are faced with changing environmental conditions throughout the year. Depending on the species, these environmental fluctuations can be experienced within a single generation or across multiple generations. Strategies for dealing with these seasonal changes vary across populations. Drosophila mojavensis is a cactophilic Drosophila species endemic to the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran Desert regularly reaches temperatures of 50°C in the summer months. As individuals of this population are rare to collect in the summer months, we simulated the cycling temperatures experienced by D...

BACKGROUND: We have previously shown that iatrogenic dehydration is associated with a shift to organic osmolyte production in the general ICU population. The aim of the present investigation was to determine the validity of the physiological response to dehydration known as aestivation and its relevance for long-term disease outcome in COVID-19. METHODS: The study includes 374 COVID-19 patients from the Pronmed cohort admitted to the ICU at Uppsala University Hospital...

Data suggest that the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles coluzzii persists during the dry season in the Sahel through a dormancy mechanism known as aestivation; however, the contribution of aestivation compared with alternative strategies such as migration is unknown. Here we marked larval Anopheles mosquitoes in two Sahelian villages in Mali using deuterium (2 H) to assess the contribution of aestivation to persistence of mosquitoes through the seven-month dry season. After an initial enrichment period, 33% of An...

Physiological maintenance of ectotherms is largely dependent on temperature. Abrupt changes in environmental conditions can cause shifts in energy budgets, with higher temperatures requiring more energy be devoted to maintenance functions, making less energy available for other activities. As a group, freshwater turtles are of conservation concern; thus, it is important to understand their physiological responses to temperature shifts, particularly given current climate change predictions. We quantified metabolic rates (MR) for three species of semi-aquatic turtles that vary in their degree of terrestriality and propensity to aestivate: chicken turtles (Deirochelys reticularia), eastern mud turtles (Kinosternon subrubrum), and eastern musk turtles (Sternotherus odoratus)...

The persistence of parasite populations through harsh seasonal bouts is often critical to circannual disease outbreaks. Parasites have a diverse repertoire of phenotypes for persistence, ranging from transitioning to a different life stage better suited to within-host dormancy to utilizing weather-hardy structures external to hosts. While these adaptive traits allow parasite species to survive through harsh seasons, it is often at survival rates that threaten population persistence. We argue that these periods of parasite (and vector) population busts could be ideal targets for disease intervention...

The research was carried out at the cremation cemetery of the Lusatian culture in Wtórek, Ostrów Wielkopolski district, Wielkopolska province, Poland. Contrary to the so-far-studied topics related to the CT imaging of burnt bones and their virtual exploration, we concentrated on the analysis of the structures formed by the soil fauna activity in the fills of urns and additional vessels, and reconstruction of the dynamics of the ecosystem variability within the cemetery area based on thereof. We also demonstrated the impact of macrofaunal activity on stratigraphy and bone fragmentation...

The functional characteristics of neuropeptides in marine invertebrates have attracted significant attention recently although functional studies of luqin-type neuropeptides are still very limited, especially in deuterostomes. The sea cucumber, Apostichopus japonicus, is a representative species of deuterostomian Holothurian invertebrates. The species has high nutritional and medicinal value in China. In this study, we report the first comprehensive histological, biochemical and pharmacological characterization of luqin-type neuropeptide signaling in the sea cucumber A...

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Fluid removal with concomitant dehydration is a common treatment strategy in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We have previously shown that iatrogenic dehydration during treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU) is associated with a shift to organic osmolyte production in the general ICU population. In this study we investigate the development of estimated osmolality (eOSM = 2Na+2K+glucose+urea) over time in ICU, as well as the relationship between the major osmolytes and eOSM. The study includes 370 COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU at Uppsala University Hospital between March 13...

The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a wide-ranging cellular response to accumulation of malfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and acts as a quality control mechanism to halt protein processing and repair/destroy malfolded proteins under stress conditions of many kinds. Among vertebrate species, amphibians experience the greatest challenges in maintaining water and osmotic balance, the high permeability of their skin making them very susceptible to dehydration and challenging their ability to maintain cellular homeostasis...

Hyperosmolality is common in critically ill patients during body fluid volume reduction. It is unknown whether this is only a result of decreased total body water or an active osmole-producing mechanism similar to that found in aestivating animals, where muscle degradation increases urea levels to preserve water. We hypothesized that fluid volume reduction in critically ill patients contributes to a shift from ionic to organic osmolytes similar to mechanisms of aestivation. We performed a post-hoc analysis on data from a multicenter observational study in adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients in the postresuscitative phase...

Polyploid breeding is widely used in aquaculture as an important area of new research. We have previously grown Apostichopus japonicus triploids with a growth advantage. The body length, body weight, and aestivation time of triploid and diploid A. japonicus were measured in this study, and the transcriptome and metabolome were used to examine the growth advantage of triploids A. japonicus. The results showed that the proportion of triploid A. japonicus with a body length of 6-12 cm and 12-18 cm was significantly higher than that of diploid A...

Temperature, a major abiotic environmental factor, regulates various physiological functions in land snails and therefore determines their biogeographical distribution. Thus, species with different distributions may present different thermal tolerance limits. Additionally, the intense reactivation of snail metabolic rate upon arousal from hibernation or aestivation may provoke stress. Land snails, Helix lucorum, display a wide altitudinal distribution resulting in populations being exposed to different seasonal temperature variations...

Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA; Adelges tsugae Annand (Hemiptera: Adelgidae)) is the cause of widespread mortality of Carolina and eastern hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana Engelmann and T. canadensis (L.) Carrière) throughout the eastern United States (U.S.). Since its arrival in the northeastern U.S., HWA has steadily invaded and established throughout eastern hemlock stands. However, in 2018, anecdotal evidence suggested a sharp, widespread HWA decline in the northeastern U.S. following above-average summer and autumn rainfall...

Earthworms have a central role in ministering the terrestrial ecosystems and are proving to have an important role in modulating the effects climate change has on soil. Aestivation is a form of dormancy employed by the organisms living in deserts and arid environments, when confronted with prolonged periods of drought. Understanding global metabolic adjustments required for withstanding the harsh conditions of the ever more severe Iberian drought, we performed a global transcriptomic exploration of the endogeic earthworm Carpetania matritensis during aestivation...

The ecological physiology of anthozoans, as well as their resistance to stressors, are strongly influenced by environmental factors and the availability of resources. The energy budget of anthozoans can vary seasonally in order to find an equilibrium between the available resources and respiration, polyp activity, growth, and reproduction processes. The variation in the biochemical composition of the animal tissues in these organisms results from a combination of the productivity processes of the water column coupled with the reproductive effort and potential starvation periods of the anthozoans...