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Biology Letters Jul 2019Fish inhabiting human-dominated ecosystems are prone to altered sensory environments in which they must live and function. Increased turbidity is one such change that...
Fish inhabiting human-dominated ecosystems are prone to altered sensory environments in which they must live and function. Increased turbidity is one such change that they must deal with. We tested whether an increase in water turbidity and the presence of visual landmarks (coloured stones) affect the foraging efficiency of wild zebrafish. We also tested the influence of extended exposure to differing turbidity levels on the subsequent foraging efficiency of acclimatized individuals. Feeding latency (time taken to find food) increased significantly with increase in turbidity levels from a minimum of 4 s to ca 300 s. However, extended exposure of fish to varying levels of turbidity decreased feeding latencies in acclimatized conditions, indicating that acclimatization to the immediate visual environment plays an important role in determining foraging success. Most significantly, we found that feeding latencies in turbid conditions decreased significantly if visual landmarks were present. This demonstrates that zebrafish use visual landmark cues to navigate to foraging sites when visibility is impaired. This study has important implications on the role of behavioural plasticity and spatial learning in animals that allow them to cope with altered sensory environments such as episodes of enhanced turbidity that could be natural or anthropogenic.
Topics: Acclimatization; Animals; Cues; Ecosystem; Zebrafish
PubMed: 31311485
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2019.0289 -
Environmental Medicine : Annual Report... 1993The de-acclimatization process in rats acclimatized to high altitude hypoxia was analyzed according to the changes in the activities of hepatic enzymes. The activities...
The de-acclimatization process in rats acclimatized to high altitude hypoxia was analyzed according to the changes in the activities of hepatic enzymes. The activities of tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase and tyrosine aminotransferase in the liver of non-acclimatized rats were increased, whereas those of acclimatized rats were decreased after exposure to a simulated altitude of 8,000 m. When the acclimatized rats were kept under normoxic conditions for 8 days and over, the suppression of enzyme induction was nullified, and both enzymes were induced by exposure to the simulated 8,000 m altitude. De-acclimatization of rats acclimatized to hypoxia can be completed in 8-11 days.
Topics: Acclimatization; Altitude; Animals; Atmosphere Exposure Chambers; Hypoxia; Liver; Male; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Tryptophan Oxygenase; Tyrosine Transaminase
PubMed: 12269349
DOI: No ID Found -
In Vivo (Athens, Greece) 2012Stress associated with transport and change of environment may have widespread effects on physiological parameters in laboratory animals. To investigate the time needed...
Stress associated with transport and change of environment may have widespread effects on physiological parameters in laboratory animals. To investigate the time needed for mice to acclimatize to a new environment, based on fecal IgA and corticosterone excretion, eightweek-old BALB/c mice of both genders were housed either in groups of eight in different cage types in open conventional cages, in Individual Ventilated Cages (IVC), in open conventional cages inside a plastic isolator, or in different group sizes (8, 4, 8, 10 or 12 mice in each group) in open conventional cages. Feces were collected from each cage on routine cage changing. There was no significant difference in corticosterone excretion in feces between animals housed in the different cage types or between animals housed in different group sizes. IgA excretion for both males and females was found to be affected by transfer of mice into a novel cage, and it was found that it takes at least four weeks for the mice to acclimatize to a new environment with respect to this parameter.
Topics: Acclimatization; Animals; Corticosterone; Ecosystem; Feces; Female; Hierarchy, Social; Housing, Animal; Immunoglobulin A; Male; Mice; Mice, Inbred BALB C
PubMed: 23160668
DOI: No ID Found -
Advances in Experimental Medicine and... 2001Interval hypoxic training (IHT) is a technique developed in the former Soviet Union, that consists of repeated exposures to 5-7 minutes of steady or progressive hypoxia,... (Review)
Review
Interval hypoxic training (IHT) is a technique developed in the former Soviet Union, that consists of repeated exposures to 5-7 minutes of steady or progressive hypoxia, interrupted by equal periods of recovery. It has been proposed for training in sports, to acclimatize to high altitude, and to treat a variety of clinical conditions, spanning from coronary heart disease to Cesarean delivery. Some of these results may originate by the different effects of continuous vs. intermittent hypoxia (IH), which can be obtained by manipulating the repetition rate, the duration and the intensity of the hypoxic stimulus. The present article will attempt to examine some of the effects of IH, and, whenever possible, compare them to those of typical IHT. IH can modify oxygen transport and energy utilization, alter respiratory and blood pressure control mechanisms, induce permanent modifications in the cardiovascular system. IHT increases the hypoxic ventilatory response, increase red blood cell count and increase aerobic capacity. Some of these effects might be potentially beneficial in specific physiologic or pathologic conditions. At this stage, this technique appears interesting for its possible applications, but still largely to be explored for its mechanisms, potentials and limitations.
Topics: Acclimatization; Animals; Autonomic Nervous System; Biological Transport; Cardiovascular System; Energy Metabolism; Humans; Hypoxia; Oxygen; Physical Fitness
PubMed: 11950151
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4757-3401-0_25 -
Journal of Experimental Zoology. Part... Jun 2016Seasonal acclimatization permits organisms to maintain function in the face of environmental change. Tadpoles of the green frog (Lithobates clamitans) overwinter as...
Seasonal acclimatization permits organisms to maintain function in the face of environmental change. Tadpoles of the green frog (Lithobates clamitans) overwinter as tadpoles in much of their range. Because they are active in winter, we hypothesized that green frog tadpoles would display acclimatization of metabolic and locomotor function. We collected tadpoles in Sewanee, Tennessee (35.2°N) in winter and summer. Tadpoles collected during each season were tested at both winter (8°C) and summer (26°C) temperatures. Winter tadpoles were able to maintain swimming performance at both temperatures, whereas swimming performance decreased at cold temperatures in summer tadpoles. There was no evidence for seasonal acclimatization of whole-animal metabolic rate. Although whole-animal metabolic acclimatization was not observed, the activities of cytochrome c oxidase, citrate synthase, and lactate dehydrogenase measured in skeletal muscle homogenates showed higher activity in winter-acclimatized tadpoles indicating compensation for temperature. Further, the composition of muscle membranes of winter tadpoles had less saturated and more monounsaturated fatty acids and a higher ω-3 balance, unsaturation index, and peroxidation index than summer tadpoles. These data indicate that reversible phenotypic plasticity of thermal physiology occurs in larval green frog tadpoles. They appear to compensate for colder temperatures to maintain burst-swimming velocity and the ability to escape predators without the cost of maintaining a constant, higher standard metabolic rate in the winter.
Topics: Acclimatization; Animals; Larva; Rana clamitans; Seasons; Temperature
PubMed: 27194039
DOI: 10.1002/jez.2016 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Apr 2013Twenty years ago, scientists began to recognize that parental effects are one of the most important influences on progeny phenotype. Consequently, it was postulated that...
Twenty years ago, scientists began to recognize that parental effects are one of the most important influences on progeny phenotype. Consequently, it was postulated that herbivorous insects could produce progeny that are acclimatized to the host plant experienced by the parents to improve progeny fitness, because host plants vary greatly in quality and quantity, and can thus provide important cues about the resources encountered by the next generation. However, despite the possible profound implications for our understanding of host-use evolution of herbivores, host-race formation and sympatric speciation, intense research has been unable to verify transgenerational acclimatization in herbivore-host plant relationships. We reared Coenonympha pamphilus larvae in the parental generation (P) on high- and low-quality host plants, and reared the offspring (F(1)) of both treatments again on high- and low-quality plants. We tested not only for maternal effects, as most previous studies, but also for paternal effects. Our results show that parents experiencing predictive cues on their host plant can indeed adjust progeny's phenotype to anticipated host plant quality. Maternal effects affected female and male offspring, whereas paternal effects affected only male progeny. We here verify, for the first time to our knowledge, the long postulated transgenerational acclimatization in an herbivore-host plant interaction.
Topics: Acclimatization; Animals; Butterflies; Female; Herbivory; Larva; Male; Nitrogen; Phenotype; Plants
PubMed: 23407834
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2856 -
Journal of Plant Research Mar 2023To clarify the wintering ability of the cactus Nopalea cochenillifera cv. Maya (edible Opuntia sp., common name "Kasugai Saboten"), we investigated the effects of...
To clarify the wintering ability of the cactus Nopalea cochenillifera cv. Maya (edible Opuntia sp., common name "Kasugai Saboten"), we investigated the effects of temperature and antioxidant capacity on chilling acclimatization. We analyzed the anatomy of cladode chlorenchyma tissue of plants exposed to light under chilling. We found that chilling acclimatization can be achieved by exposure to approximately 15 °C for 2 weeks and suggest that it is affected by whether or not antioxidant capacity can recover. The overwintering cacti had the thinnest cuticle but firm cuticular wax, which is important in the acquisition of low temperature tolerance under strong light. In cacti with severe chilling injury, round swollen nuclei with clumping chloroplasts were localized in the upper part (axial side) of the cell, as though pushed up by large vacuoles in the lower part. In overwintering cacti, chloroplasts were arranged on the lateral side of the cell as in control plants, but they formed pockets: invaginations with a thin layer of chloroplast stroma that surrounded mitochondria and peroxisomes. Specific cellular structural changes depended on the degree of chilling stress and provide useful insights linking chloroplast behavior and structural changes to the environmental stress response.
Topics: Opuntia; Antioxidants; Cold Temperature; Chloroplasts; Plants; Acclimatization
PubMed: 36690846
DOI: 10.1007/s10265-023-01437-9 -
The Journal of Physiology May 2020We hypothesized that hypoxia inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) in CNS respiratory centres is necessary for ventilatory acclimatization to hypoxia (VAH); VAH is a...
KEY POINTS
We hypothesized that hypoxia inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) in CNS respiratory centres is necessary for ventilatory acclimatization to hypoxia (VAH); VAH is a time-dependent increase in baseline ventilation and the hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR) occurring over days to weeks of chronic sustained hypoxia (CH). Constitutive deletion of HIF-1α in CNS neurons in transgenic mice tended to blunt the increase in HVR that occurs in wild-type mice with CH. Conditional deletion of HIF-1α in glutamatergic neurons of the nucleus tractus solitarius during CH significantly decreased ventilation in acute hypoxia but not normoxia in CH mice. These effects are not explained by changes in metabolic rate, nor CO , and there were no changes in the HVR in normoxic mice. HIF-1α mediated changes in gene expression in CNS respiratory centres are necessary in addition to plasticity of arterial chemoreceptors for normal VAH.
ABSTRACT
Chronic hypoxia (CH) produces a time-dependent increase of resting ventilation and the hypoxic ventilatory response (HVR) that is called ventilatory acclimatization to hypoxia (VAH). VAH involves plasticity in arterial chemoreceptors and the CNS [e.g. nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS)], although the signals for this plasticity are not known. We hypothesized that hypoxia inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α), an O -sensitive transcription factor, is necessary in the NTS for normal VAH. We tested this in two mouse models using loxP-Cre gene deletion. First, HIF-1α was constitutively deleted in CNS neurons (CNS-HIF-1α ) by breeding HIF-1α floxed mice with mice expressing Cre-recombinase driven by the calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIα promoter. Second, HIF-1α was deleted in NTS neurons in adult mice (NTS-HIF-1α ) by microinjecting adeno-associated virus that expressed Cre-recombinase in HIF-1α floxed mice. In normoxic control mice, HIF-1α deletion in the CNS or NTS did not affect ventilation, nor the acute HVR (10-15 min hypoxic exposure). In mice acclimatized to CH for 1 week, ventilation in hypoxia was blunted in CNS-HIF-1α and significantly decreased in NTS-HIF-1α compared to control mice (P < 0.0001). These changes were not explained by differences in metabolic rate or CO . Immunofluorescence showed that HIF-1α deletion in NTS-HIF-1α was restricted to glutamatergic neurons. The results indicate that HIF-1α is a necessary signal for VAH and the previously described plasticity in glutamatergic neurotransmission in the NTS with CH. HIF-1α deletion had no effect on the increase in normoxic ventilation with acclimatization to CH, indicating this is a distinct mechanism from the increased HVR with VAH.
Topics: Acclimatization; Animals; Hypoxia; Mice; Neurons; Respiratory Center; Solitary Nucleus
PubMed: 32026480
DOI: 10.1113/JP279331 -
High Altitude Medicine & Biology 2003When lowlanders go to high altitude, the resulting oxygen deprivation impairs mental and physical performance, quality of sleep, and general well-being. This paper... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
When lowlanders go to high altitude, the resulting oxygen deprivation impairs mental and physical performance, quality of sleep, and general well-being. This paper compares the effects of ventilatory acclimatization and oxygen enrichment of room air on the improvement of oxygenation as judged by the increase in the alveolar P(O2) and the reduction in equivalent altitude. The results show that, on the average, complete ventilatory acclimatization at an altitude of 5000 m increases the alveolar P(O2) by nearly 8 torr, which corresponds to a reduction in equivalent altitude of about 1000 m, although there is considerable individual variability. By comparison, oxygen enrichment to 27% at 5000 m can easily reduce the equivalent altitude to 3200 m, which is generally well tolerated. Because full ventilatory acclimatization at altitudes up to about 3600 m reduces the equivalent altitude to about 3000 m, oxygen enrichment is not justified for well-acclimatized persons. At an altitude of 4200 m, where several telescopes are located on the summit of Mauna Kea, full acclimatization reduces the equivalent altitude to about 3400 m, but the pattern of commuting probably would not allow this. Therefore, at this altitude, oxygen enrichment would be beneficial but is not essential. At higher altitudes such as 5050 m, where other telescopes are located or planned, the gain in oxygenation from acclimatization is insufficient to produce an adequate mental or physical performance for most work, and oxygen enrichment is highly desirable. Full ventilatory acclimatization requires at least a week of continuous exposure, although much of the improvement is seen in the first 2 days.
Topics: Acclimatization; Air Conditioning; Altitude; Humans; Oxygen; Pulmonary Gas Exchange; Ventilation
PubMed: 14561244
DOI: 10.1089/152702903769192340 -
Trends in Ecology & Evolution Oct 2020Studies suggest that many species are already living close to their upper physiological thermal limits. Phenotypic plasticity is thought to be an important mechanism for... (Review)
Review
Studies suggest that many species are already living close to their upper physiological thermal limits. Phenotypic plasticity is thought to be an important mechanism for species to counter rapid environmental change, yet the extent to which plastic responses may buffer projected climate change - and what limits the evolution of plasticity - is still unclear. The tolerance-plasticity trade-off hypothesis predicts that the evolution of plasticity may be constrained by a species' thermal tolerance. Empirical evidence is equivocal, but we argue that inconsistent patterns likely reflect problems in experimental design/analysis, limiting our ability to detect and interpret trade-off patterns. Here, we address why we may, or may not see tolerance-plasticity trade-offs and outline a framework addressing current limitations, focusing on understanding the underlying mechanisms.
Topics: Acclimatization; Adaptation, Physiological; Climate Change; Thermotolerance
PubMed: 32513551
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.05.006