ventilation
- Divergent respiratory and cardiovascular responses to hypoxia in bar-headed geese and Andean birds
Highlighted Article: When exposed to progressive hypoxia, bar-headed geese (biannual high-altitude migrators) increase ventilation and heart rate, whereas Andean geese (lifelong high-altitude residents) increase lung oxygen extraction and cardiac stroke volume.
- Solar-powered ventilation of African termite mounds
Highlighted Article: Termite mounds harness oscillatory solar heating to drive internal ventilation of metabolic gases, functioning as an external lung for the colony. This passive mechanism has clear implications for human engineering.
- Effect of temperature on chemosensitive locus coeruleus neurons of savannah monitor lizards, Varanus exanthematicus
Summary: CO2 chemosensitivity is temperature dependent in savannah monitor lizards, where the proportion of locus coeruleus neurons excited or inhibited by CO2 changes with changes in temperature.
- Altitude matters: differences in cardiovascular and respiratory responses to hypoxia in bar-headed geese reared at high and low altitudes
Highlighted Article: When exposed to progressive hypoxia, bar-headed geese reared at altitude exhibit a reduced metabolism and modestly increased ventilatory response, and also initiated cardiac responses earlier than geese reared at low altitude.
- Kinematics of mouthbrooding in Oreochromis niloticus (Cichlidae)
Highlighted Article: Mouthbrooding cichlids regularly use posterior-to-anterior waves of head expansion and significant inflow through the opercular slits to move the brood anteriorly away from the gills.
- Pregnancy limits lung function during exercise and depresses metabolic rate in the skink Tiliqua nigrolutea
Highlighted article: Pregnancy depresses metabolic rate in blotched blue tongue lizards and limits exercise ability. Despite the developing fetuses compressing the lungs, gas diffusion ability was not altered.