Animal physiology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some atmospheric pollutants may disrupt chemical communication in insects. Here, the authors show that exposure to elevated ozone disrupts pheromone-mediated mate recognition and increases hybridization in laboratory colonies of four Drosophila species.

    • Nan-Ji Jiang
    • , Xinqi Dong
    •  & Markus Knaden

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bergmann’s Rule predicts larger body sizes in colder climates. Here, the authors examine extinct and extant dinosaurs (birds) and mammaliaforms, finding no evidence of body size variation with latitude in any group, but a small variation with temperature in extant birds.

    • Lauren N. Wilson
    • , Jacob D. Gardner
    •  & Chris L. Organ

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How fast can animals run? Here, the authors show that maximum running speed is limited by different musculoskeletal constraints across animal size: kinetic energy capacity in small animals, and work capacity in large animals.

    • David Labonte
    • , Peter J. Bishop
    •  & Christofer J. Clemente

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mucus are ubiquitous natural materials, but little is known about their structures or properties. Here, the authors identify the components of three functional mucus from snails, which are the focus of a rapidly growing number of biomedical and cosmetic applications.

    • Antonio R. Cerullo
    • , Maxwell B. McDermott
    •  & Adam B. Braunschweig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The maxilloturbinal, an area of the mammalian nasal cavity, has been proposed to play a pivotal role in body temperature maintenance. Here, the authors use computed tomographic data to show that neither corrected basal metabolic rate nor body temperature significantly correlate with the relative surface area of the maxilloturbinal.

    • Quentin Martinez
    • , Jan Okrouhlík
    •  & Pierre-Henri Fabre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Caenorhabditis elegans is used as a model species to investigate ageing, yet has a very high degree of plasticity in lifespan. This study argues that ageing in C. elegans is driven by suicidal reproductive effort, unlike many other organisms.

    • Carina C. Kern
    • , Shivangi Srivastava
    •  & David Gems

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Malaria mosquitoes use their ears to detect the flight tones of mating partners in the swarm as part of the courtship ritual. Here, the authors describe the auditory role of octopamine as a modulator of auditory plasticity in malaria mosquitoes and identify the main receptors involved in this process.

    • Marcos Georgiades
    • , Alexandros Alampounti
    •  & Marta Andrés

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Birds can adapt to temperature gradients by changing body size (Bergmann’s rule) or bill size (Allen’s rule), but many groups don’t conform to these patterns. Here the authors show that most bird families show subtle and complementary changes in bill and body size, while also being constrained by feeding ecology.

    • Justin W. Baldwin
    • , Joan Garcia-Porta
    •  & Carlos A. Botero

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flowers are well known for attracting pollinators with visual and olfactory displays. Here, the authors show that in a nocturnal, desert pollination system, flower choice by pollinators is also mediated by floral humidity.

    • Ajinkya Dahake
    • , Piyush Jain
    •  & Robert A. Raguso

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The genetic bases of yak adaptations to extreme conditions remains elusive. This study compares yak and cattle at a genomic and transcriptomic level, revealing a new type of endothelial cell and candidate genes related with elastic fiber formation in yak lungs that might contribute to high altitude adaptation.

    • Xue Gao
    • , Sheng Wang
    •  & Qi-En Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors show that Weddell seal mothers mobilize endogenous iron stores during lactation to provide to pups, resulting in iron concentrations in milk 100x higher than terrestrial mammals. This was associated with reduced dive durations in the mother, a cost of reproduction.

    • Michelle R. Shero
    • , Amy L. Kirkham
    •  & Jennifer M. Burns

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report single-nucleus RNA sequencing for several anatomical locations in 11 species, including cat, dog, hamster, lizard, goat, rabbit, duck, pigeon, pangolin, tiger, and deer, highlighting coexpression of SARS-CoV-2 entry factors ACE2 and TMPRSS2.

    • Dongsheng Chen
    • , Jian Sun
    •  & Xun Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Naked mole-rats are hypoxia-tolerant mammals, and during hypoxia their body temperature decreases via unknown mechanisms. Here the authors report that the hypoxia-induced body temperature decrease in naked mole rats occurs through decreased brown adipose tissue thermogenesis via decreases in a key thermogenic mitochondrial protein: UCP1.

    • Hang Cheng
    • , Rajaa Sebaa
    •  & Matthew E. Pamenter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anthropogenic change, such as urban heat islands, present challenges to biodiversity that can be overcome through phenotypic plasticity. Unlike their ancestral counterparts, urban lizards have fewer maladaptive gene expression responses to higher temperatures in a common garden experiment, suggesting the evolution of adaptive plasticity.

    • Shane C. Campbell-Staton
    • , Jonathan P. Velotta
    •  & Kristin M. Winchell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Incretin hormones regulate insulin and glucagon secretion in mammals, but similar peptides have not been characterized in invertebrates. Here the authors show that neuropeptide F functions similar to mammalian incretin in fruit flies, responding to sugar and enhancing insulin-like peptide secretion.

    • Yuto Yoshinari
    • , Hina Kosakamoto
    •  & Ryusuke Niwa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known on how mitonuclear interactions influence genomic divergence among hybrid and parental lineages. A study of hybridizing wood warbler species complex finds a nuclear gene block with mitochondrial functions coevolves with mitochondrial genome, driven by climate-associated divergent selection underlying hybrid-parental population divergence.

    • Silu Wang
    • , Madelyn J. Ore
    •  & Darren Irwin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooperative species, like humans, can display spontaneously prosocial behaviour. Experiments on a monogamous fish with biparental care shows that pair bonded males are prosocial to both their long-term mates and to strange females, but make antisocial choices if their mate is watching, or if another male is the potential recipient.

    • Shun Satoh
    • , Redouan Bshary
    •  & Masanori Kohda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Historical climate adaptation can give insight into the potential for adaptation to contemporary changing climates. Here Bennett et al. investigate thermal tolerance evolution across much of the tree of life and find different effects of ancestral climate on the subsequent evolution of ectotherms vs. endotherms.

    • Joanne M. Bennett
    • , Jennifer Sunday
    •  & Miguel Ángel Olalla-Tárraga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change may pose a challenge not only for survival of animals but also for their reproduction. Here, Schou et al. analyse how male and female ostrich fertility relates to fluctuating temperature across 20 years, finding reduced fertility away from the thermal optimum, but also individual variation in thermal tolerance.

    • Mads F. Schou
    • , Maud Bonato
    •  & Charlie K. Cornwallis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modern mammals are endothermic, but it has not been clear when this type of metabolism evolved. Here, Newham et al. analyse tooth and bone structure in Early Jurassic stem-mammal fossils to estimate lifespan and blood flow rates, which inform about basal and maximum metabolic rates, respectively, and show these stem-mammals had metabolic rates closer to modern ectothermic reptiles than to endothermic mammals.

    • Elis Newham
    • , Pamela G. Gill
    •  & Ian J. Corfe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about gene expression of organisms in the deep sea, partially owing to constraints on sampling these organisms in situ. Here the authors circumvent this problem, fixing tissue of a deep-sea mussel at 1,688 m in depth, and later analyzing transcriptomes to reveal gene expression patterns showing tidal oscillations.

    • Audrey M. Mat
    • , Jozée Sarrazin
    •  & Marjolaine Matabos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fast metabolisms tend to shorten lifespans by increasing oxidative damage. This study identifies a gene mutation that keeps a key antioxidant response active, possibly allowing Neoaves bird species to avoid the tradeoff between rapid metabolism and longevity that challenges most mammals, including humans.

    • Gianni M. Castiglione
    • , Zhenhua Xu
    •  & Elia J. Duh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The praying mantis, a predatory insect, estimates depth via binocular vision. In this way, the animal decides whether prey is within reach. Here, the authors explore the neural correlates of binocular distance estimation and report that individual neurons are tuned to specific locations in 3D space.

    • Ronny Rosner
    • , Joss von Hadeln
    •  & Jenny C. A. Read

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perceptual constancy requires neural representations selective for object identity, yet tolerant of identity-preserving transformations. Here, the authors show that sound identity is represented robustly in auditory cortex and that behavioral generalization requires precise timing of identity information.

    • Stephen M. Town
    • , Katherine C. Wood
    •  & Jennifer K. Bizley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animal physiology, including reproduction, could respond to climate change in complex ways. Here, the authors use experiments with an insect model system to show that simulated heatwaves harm male reproductive potential by reducing sperm number and viability, an effect which persisted into the next generation

    • Kris Sales
    • , Ramakrishnan Vasudeva
    •  & Matthew J. G. Gage

  • Article
    | Open Access

    More than half of solar radiation is at near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Here, Medina et al. show that among Australian birds NIR reflectivity is higher in species from hot, arid environments and their biophysical modelling further shows that this can reduce water loss from evaporative cooling.

    • Iliana Medina
    • , Elizabeth Newton
    •  & Devi Stuart-Fox

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During ‘meiotic drive’, some chromosomes can bias their spindle orientation and thus be retained in the egg. Here, the authors find that this phenomenon can be driven by microtubule force asymmetry on chromosomes with differently sized centromeres and kinetochores.

    • Tianyu Wu
    • , Simon I. R. Lane
    •  & Keith T. Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dietary carotenoids have been proposed to have physiological benefits in addition to contributing to coloration. Here, Koch et al. compare immune and antioxidant functions in yellow, carotenoid-rich vs. white, carotenoid-deficient canaries and find no difference, suggesting a limited physiological role of carotenoids.

    • Rebecca E. Koch
    • , Andreas N. Kavazis
    •  & Geoffrey E. Hill

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ‘pace of life’ depends on both metabolic rate and life history traits; however, whether these evolve similarly in response to the environment is not clear. Here, Auer et al. show parallel evolution of metabolic rate and a suite of life history traits in response to predator environment in Trinidadian guppies.

    • Sonya K. Auer
    • , Cynthia A. Dick
    •  & David N. Reznick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To avoid being eaten, poisonous prey animals must rely on fast passage of toxins across a predator’s oral tissue, a major barrier to large molecules. Here, Raaymakers et al. show that antimicrobial peptides co secreted with frog toxins enhance intoxication of a snake predator by permeabilizing oral cell layers.

    • Constantijn Raaymakers
    • , Elin Verbrugghe
    •  & Kim Roelants

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hummingbirds are known to defy the predicted scaling relationships between body and wing size. Here, Skandalis et al. develop a ‘force allometry’ framework to show that, regardless of wing size, hummingbird species have the same wing velocity during flight.

    • Dimitri A. Skandalis
    • , Paolo S. Segre
    •  & Douglas L. Altshuler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Elevated temperatures can cause anemones to bleach, with unknown effects on their associated symbiotic fish. Here, Beldade and colleagues show that climate-induced bleaching alters anemonefish hormonal stress response, resulting in decreased reproductive hormones and severely impacted reproduction.

    • Ricardo Beldade
    • , Agathe Blandin
    •  & Suzanne C. Mills

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The stress-reducing effects of social bonds have been hypothesized to accrue either during stressful events or across daily affiliations. Here, Wittiget al. show that the presence of social partners reduces levels of stress hormones in wild chimpanzees beyond stressful contexts, supporting the latter hypothesis.

    • Roman M. Wittig
    • , Catherine Crockford
    •  & Klaus Zuberbühler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tardigrades are resistant to extreme environmental conditions including dehydration, radiation and the vacuum of space. Here the authors present a high-quality genome which displays minimal horizontal gene transfer, and identify the unique tardigrade protein Dsup which suppresses DNA damage.

    • Takuma Hashimoto
    • , Daiki D. Horikawa
    •  & Takekazu Kunieda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the nematode Pristionchus pacificus, a developmental switch, the sulfatase eud-1, controls mouth-form plasticity. Here, the authors show that mutations in two conserved histone modifying enzymes mimic the eud-1 phenotype, in part mediated by an antisense eud-1RNA, resulting in the absence of one mouth-form

    • Vahan Serobyan
    • , Hua Xiao
    •  & Ralf J. Sommer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Giraffe’s unique anatomy and physiology include its stature and associated cardiovascular adaptation. Here, Douglas Cavener and colleagues provide de novogenome assemblies of giraffe and its closest relative okapi and provide comparative analyses to infer insights into evolution and adaptation.

    • Morris Agaba
    • , Edson Ishengoma
    •  & Douglas R. Cavener

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding climatic adaptation in fish is limited by a lack of large-scale, long term acclimation studies. Here, Sandblom et al. show that fish exposed to a 5-10 °C increase in water temperature next to a nuclear power plant display contrasting upper and lower cardiorespiratory thermal compensation limits.

    • Erik Sandblom
    • , Timothy D. Clark
    •  & Fredrik Jutfelt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adverse early life experiences can have negative consequences for health and survival in later life. Here, Tung et al. show that in female baboons, the cumulative number of adverse experiences can be a strong predictor of lifespan.

    • Jenny Tung
    • , Elizabeth A. Archie
    •  & Susan C. Alberts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Parents are faced with the dilemma whether to invest in their current offspring, or potential future young. Here, Engel et al. show that nutritionally-dependent young induce temporary infertility in female burying beetles, which in turn is signalled to the male partner via a hormone-related anti-aphrodisiac.

    • Katharina C. Engel
    • , Johannes Stökl
    •  & Sandra Steiger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In contrast to the larynx of mammals, birds produce sound using a unique vocal organ called the syrinx. Using ex vivo preparations, Elemans et al.show that, despite large anatomical differences, sound production across a range of avian taxa is via the myoelastic-aerodynamic mechanism, the same mechanism involved in human speech.

    • C.P.H Elemans
    • , J.H. Rasmussen
    •  & J.G. Švec

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about how detritivorous invertebrates cope with high levels of defensive plant polyphenols. Here, Liebekeet al. identify a new class of surface-active metabolites in earthworms exposed to high-polyphenol diets, and show that they play a protective role against precipitation of proteins.

    • Manuel Liebeke
    • , Nicole Strittmatter
    •  & Jacob G. Bundy

  • Article |

    Deep-sea diving mammals routinely undergo extreme physiological challenges not experienced by their terrestrial counterparts. Using high-resolution electrocardiographic recorders fitted to seals and dolphins, Williams et al. report an increased frequency of cardiac arrhythmias at greater exercise intensity and dive depth.

    • Terrie M. Williams
    • , Lee A. Fuiman
    •  & Randall W. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate from North America to central Mexico during the fall. Here, Guerra et al. show that, in addition to a sun compass orientation, monarch butterflies use a magnetic compass to help direct their flight towards the equator.

    • Patrick A Guerra
    • , Robert J Gegear
    •  & Steven M Reppert

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