Subject collection: Ecophysiology: responses to environmental stressors and change
- Facultative hyperthermia during a heatwave delays injurious dehydration of an arboreal marsupial
Highlighted Article: When it is hot outside, a possum can save water and avoid dangerous levels of dehydration by letting its body temperature rise with the heat.
- Future ocean warming may prove beneficial for the northern population of European seabass, but ocean acidification will not
Summary: Heart mitochondria of juvenile European sea bass are impaired by acute warming, but seem to benefit from conditioning to warmer temperatures; they are only marginally impacted by ocean acidification.
- Thermal tolerance in the urban heat island: thermal sensitivity varies ontogenetically and differs between embryos of two sympatric ectotherms
Summary: Embryos of two lizard species differ in thermal tolerance in ways that correspond with species-specific nest microhabitats and patterns of occupancy throughout the urban matrix.
- Brain cooling marginally increases acute upper thermal tolerance in Atlantic cod
Summary: Selective cooling of cod brain during whole-animal thermal ramping marginally increases acute upper thermal tolerance, suggesting that direct thermal effects on brain neurons may contribute to the acute upper thermal tolerance.
- Hemodynamic responses to warming in euryhaline rainbow trout: implications of the osmo-respiratory compromise
Summary: Gastrointestinal blood flow of seawater-acclimated fish is fine-tuned to elevate water absorption and maintain osmotic balance during acute temperature increases.
- Developmental effects of heatwave conditions on the early life stages of a coral reef fish
Summary: Juvenile damselfish exposed in early life to a sufficient duration of heatwave conditions are smaller in size but have better predator-escape performance.
- Ocean acidification affects calcareous tube growth in adults and reared offspring of serpulid polychaetes
Summary: Investigation of calcified tube growth of Serpulidae under low-pH conditions indicates that ocean acidification will negatively affect the initiation and persistence of both biofouling and epiphytic polychaete tube worms.
- ATP-induced reversed thermal sensitivity of O2 binding in both major haemoglobin polymorphs of the non-endothermic Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua
Summary: Phenotypic plasticity allows both major haemoglobin polymorphs of non-endothermic Atlantic cod to show ATP-induced reversed thermal sensitivity of oxygen binding at their warming southern distribution limit in the North East Atlantic.
- Body condition impacts blood and muscle oxygen storage capacity of free-living beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas)
Summary: The relationship between body condition and blood and muscle O2 stores in beluga whales may represent a vicious cycle, in which decreases in condition impair foraging ability, leading to further reductions in condition.
- Comparing thermal performance curves across traits: how consistent are they?
Summary: Examination of the extent to which thermal performance curves differ across traits and the timing of the temperature exposure, with regard to predictions of species responses to climate change.