cold tolerance
- Shift in worker physiology and gene expression pattern from reproductive to diapause-like with colony age in the bumble bee Bombus impatiens
Summary: Bumblebee workers exhibit a physiological signature (innate to workers, queen or the colony) corresponding to colony age with a shift towards a diapause-like profile in late-eclosing workers.
- Rapid cold hardening: ecological relevance, physiological mechanisms and new perspectives
Summary: Rapid cold hardening allows ectotherms to quickly enhance their cold tolerance. Here, we review the ecological relevance, underlying mechanisms and future research directions for this important process.
- Evidence for a rapid cold hardening response in cultured Drosophila S2 cells
Summary: Many insects quickly enhance their cold tolerance with a plastic response called rapid cold hardening, and here we demonstrate that cultured Drosophila cells are capable of this impressive phenotype.
- Selection for reproduction under short photoperiods changes diapause-associated traits and induces widespread genomic divergence
Highlighted Article: Quasinatural selection for reproduction under short photoperiods affects traits associated with reproductive diapause without altering the circadian rhythm, and induces divergence of SNPs associated with genes and pathways involved in diapause.
- Mitochondrial genotype influences the response to cold stress in the European green crab, Carcinus maenas
Summary: Different mitochondrial haplotypes of Carcinus maenas in the Gulf of Maine, derived from multiple biological introductions, have a strong, male-specific effect on whether invasive crabs can right themselves under cold stress, while two candidate nuclear loci have no such effect.
- The many roles of fats in overwintering insects
Summary: We explore the evidence that insects subsist on fat overwinter, the consequences of subzero temperatures for fat metabolism, and some of the emerging functional roles of fat in overwintering insects.
- Critical thermal limits affected differently by developmental and adult thermal fluctuations
Summary: Thermal fluctuations during development in Drosophila melanogaster lead to detrimental cold and beneficial heat acclimation responses, while thermal fluctuations induce little acclimation response during adult exposure.
- CRISPR-induced null alleles show that Frost protects Drosophila melanogaster reproduction after cold exposure
Summary: The Drosophila gene Frost is expressed in response to cold exposure. Genome editing shows that its function is to protect post-cold reproduction rather than to improve tolerance during cold exposure.
- Reversibility of developmental heat and cold plasticity is asymmetric and has long-lasting consequences for adult thermal tolerance
Summary: Using Drosophila melanogaster, we show how developmental plasticity of cold tolerance is completely reversible in the adult stage, while adult acclimation in heat tolerance is constrained by developmental temperature.
- Arginine and proline applied as food additives stimulate high freeze tolerance in larvae of Drosophila melanogaster
Highlighted Article: Development of a laboratory technique that secures high survival of the tropical fly Drosophila melanogaster when most of its body water is frozen.