photoperiod
- Ambient temperature affects multiple drivers of physiology and behaviour: adaptation for timely departure of obligate spring migrants
Editor's choice: Songbirds use temperature in the behavioral decision of when to migrate from wintering areas. Transcriptional responsiveness to temperature is a significant component of the overall adaptive strategy for spring migration.
- Photoperiodic regulation in a wild-derived mouse strain
Summary: Mus musculus molossinus are wild-derived melatonin-proficient mice that display photoperiodic changes in reproductive organs and body mass, enhanced by gestational experience and associated with corresponding changes in pituitary and hypothalamic gene expression.
- Circadian rhythms and environmental disturbances – underexplored interactions
Summary: Human-induced changes in temperature, chemical discharge, eutrophication of water and the associated depletion of oxygen may disrupt the integration between circadian rhythms and other functions in animals. This possibility should be considered more thoroughly in studies addressing the environmental responses of animals.
- Cold temperature represses daily rhythms in the liver transcriptome of a stenothermal teleost under decreasing day length
Summary: Transcriptomic profiling of liver tissue in a cold-adapted fish suggests tight coupling of temperature responses and daily rhythms.
- Waiting for the Sun: the circannual programme of reindeer is delayed by the recurrence of rhythmical melatonin secretion after the arctic night
Summary: Exposure to constant light or constant darkness accelerates the onset of spring physiology in overwintering reindeer; this has implications for current models of circannual time-keeping in mammals.
- Role of GnIH in photoperiodic regulation of seasonal reproduction in the Eurasian tree sparrow
Summary: GnIH is an important part of the mechanism by which photoperiod regulates seasonal reproduction in birds.
- Photoperiod but not food restriction modulates innate immunity in an opportunistic breeder, Loxia curvirostra
Summary: Long day lengths and induced sickness, but not food restriction, increase multiple measures of innate immunity in the red crossbill, an opportunistically breeding bird.
- Adaptations to polar life in mammals and birds
Summary: Polar animals are well adapted to the hardships of polar life.
- Negative energy balance in a male songbird, the Abert's towhee, constrains the testicular endocrine response to luteinizing hormone stimulation
Summary: Energy deficiency in an adult male songbird has no detectable effect on the development of reproductive morphology, but constrains the endocrine responsiveness of the testes.