artificial selection
- Stress coping and evolution of aerobic exercise performance: corticosterone levels in voles from a selection experiment
Summary: The aerobic exercise performance of bank voles during a swimming trial is suppressed by the glucocorticoid stress response, but artificial selection for high performance does not modify the blood corticosterone level.
- Selection for longer limbs in mice increases bone stiffness and brittleness, but does not alter bending strength
Summary: Fifteen generations of artificial selection for long limb bones in mice substantially increased bone stiffness and brittleness, suggesting bone growth rates can significantly impact bone material properties.
- Reduced non-bicarbonate skeletal muscle buffering capacity in mice with the mini-muscle phenotype
Summary: High-runner mice expressing the mini-muscle phenotype have reduced skeletal muscle buffering capacity; female mice have a lower buffering capacity than males and wheel access has no significant effect.
- Effects of activity, genetic selection and their interaction on muscle metabolic capacities and organ masses in mice
Summary: Organ morphology and biochemistry were altered in response to selective breeding for voluntary wheel running, chronic exercise and interactions as a result of ‘more pain, more gain’ or the evolution of greater phenotypic plasticity.
- Heat dissipation does not suppress an immune response in laboratory mice divergently selected for basal metabolic rate (BMR)
Summary: Heat dissipation may constrain physiological processes associated with compulsory heat generation (e.g. lactation), but is unlikely to constrain immune responses in mice.
- Limits to sustained energy intake. XXIII. Does heat dissipation capacity limit the energy budget of lactating bank voles?
Summary: Fur removal increases both energy budget and reproductive output at peak lactation in a non-laboratory rodent, the bank vole, supporting the heat dissipation limit theory.
- Hindlimb muscle fibre size and glycogen stores in bank voles with increased aerobic exercise metabolism
Summary: Bank voles selected for high swim-induced aerobic metabolism over 13 generations show increased hindlimb muscle mass, but the muscle fibre characteristics remain unaffected.