Freshwater turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii Gray) were acclimated to temperatures of 5, 10, 20 and 30°C for at least 12 days, and pulmonary ventilation, oxygen uptake and arterial pH, PCOCO2 and POO2 were determined in completely unrestrained specimens. Oxygen uptake (V·OO2) increased overproportionately (6.7-fold) as compared to pulmonary ventilation (V·1, 4.4-fold) when the temperature increased from 10 to 30°C. The observed rise in arterial PCOCO2 from 13 (5°C) to 32mmHg (30°C) was the result of a decrease in V·1/V·OO2, whereas an increase of arterial POO2 from 12Torr at 5°C to about 60Torr at 20 and 30°C mainly resulted from the effects of intracardiac blood shunting combined with temperature-dependent shifts of the oxygen dissociation curve. Arterial pH fell with rising temperature significantly less (ΔpH/Δt =−0.010U/°C) than required for constant relative alkalinity and for constant dissociation of imidazole. The changes of cerebrospinal fluid pH with temperature, calculated from the mean arterial PCOCO2 values, were even smaller [ΔpH/ΔtCSF = −0.008). It is concluded that the observed temperature dependence of the acid-base status is not in agreement with the alphastat hypothesis.
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
-AntJaws.png?versionId=3942)
Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
-Review.png?versionId=3942)
In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
Social media
