stress
- Tissue-specific expression of 11β-HSD and its effects on plasma corticosterone during the stress response
Summary: Peripheral enzymes are primarily responsible for enzymatic modulation of the glucocorticoid stress response in songbirds.
- Rapid cold hardening protects against sublethal freezing injury in an Antarctic insect
Summary: Rapid cold hardening has a well-established role in preventing death from cold; present data show it also protects against non-lethal freezing injury in a freeze-tolerant Antarctic insect.
- Strain transformation: enhancement of invertebrate memory in a new rearing environment
Summary: A change in rearing environment results in the establishment of a lab-bred Lymnaea stagnalis strain with an enhanced ability to form memory as well as heightened resilience to physiological stressors.
- Repeated stimulation of the pituitary–adrenal axis alters offspring phenotype of a wild passerine
Summary: Developmental stress has negative effects on pied flycatcher offspring growth and physiology, but may have short-term benefits on performance by enhancing antipredator behaviour.
- Do arthropods feel anxious during molts?
Highlighted Article: Molts impose developmental stress in crayfish, under the control of ecdysteroids, and cause transient light-avoidance behavior that has features characteristic of anxiety.
- An attempt to select non-genetic variation in resistance to starvation and reduced chill coma recovery time in Drosophila melanogaster
Summary: An artificial selection experiment using D. melanogaster inbred lines to test for non-genetic inheritance that could be selected revealed a weak response to selection in the inbred and outbred lines, with variability across lines.
- Deciphering function of the pulmonary arterial sphincters in loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta)
Summary: The pulmonary artery sphincter allows sea turtles to manage pulmonary perfusion during diving, but this may become a liability during stress at depth, which may increase inert gas uptake resulting in gas emboli.
- Evidence of embryonic regulation of maternally derived yolk corticosterone
Summary: Embryos are capable of metabolizing maternally derived yolk corticosterone to minimize exposure during development and to avoid deleterious effects on phenotype and survival.
- Individual differences in heart rate reveal a broad range of autonomic phenotypes in a free-living seabird population
Summary: Streaked shearwaters show consistent individual differences in autonomic activity that persist even across years and are driven by individual differences in parasympathetic ‘rest-and-digest’ activity, not sympathetic ‘fight-or-flight’ activity.
- The effect of chronic and acute stressors, and their interaction, on testes function: an experimental test during testicular recrudescence
Summary: Exposure to an acute stressor downregulated testosterone production, but this effect was absent in chronically disturbed birds. The acute stressor had a strong effect on the testicular transcriptome, whereas chronic disturbance had a negligible effect.