The role of central chemosensitivity in the control of ventilation in fishes was investigated directly by perfusing a mock extradural fluid (EDF) through the cranial space in the medullary region of conscious air-breathing fish, Amia calva. Perfusions with Sudan Black dye showed that the mock EDF communicated with the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and entered the cerebral ventricles. Altering the PO2, PCO2 and/or pH of the mock EDF had no effect on gill- or air-breathing rates, heart rate or blood pressure during exposure to normoxic water. Aquatic hypoxia, however, stimulated gill ventilation and elevated blood pressure, but did not affect heart rate; altering the gas tensions and/or pH of mock EDF still had no effect on recorded variables. Sodium cyanide (NaCN) added to the mock EDF caused struggling at concentrations above 500 μgml−1, but did not uniformly stimulate ventilation. These results suggest that central chemoreceptors, which mediate cardiovascular or ventilatory reflexes, are absent in Amia.
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
