The Ability to Enter Torpor Might Have Saved Mammals Across the KT/K-Pg Mass Extinction

Cool echidnas survive the fire

Authors:

Nowack et al

Abstract:

Fires have occurred throughout history, including those associated with the meteoroid impact at the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) boundary that eliminated many vertebrate species. To evaluate the recent hypothesis that the survival of the K–Pg fires by ancestral mammals was dependent on their ability to use energy-conserving torpor, we studied body temperature fluctuations and activity of an egg-laying mammal, the echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), often considered to be a ‘living fossil’, before, during and after a prescribed burn. All but one study animal survived the fire in the prescribed burn area and echidnas remained inactive during the day(s) following the fire and substantially reduced body temperature during bouts of torpor. For weeks after the fire, all individuals remained in their original territories and compensated for changes in their habitat with a decrease in mean body temperature and activity. Our data suggest that heterothermy enables mammals to outlast the conditions during and after a fire by reducing energy expenditure, permitting periods of extended inactivity. Therefore, torpor facilitates survival in a fire-scorched landscape and consequently may have been of functional significance for mammalian survival at the K–Pg boundary.

Primates use Less Calories Than Other Mammals

New research shows that humans and other primates burn 50% fewer calories each day than other mammals. The study, published January 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that these remarkably slow metabolisms explain why humans and other primates grow up so slowly and live such long lives. The study also reports that primates in zoos expend as much energy as those in the wild, suggesting that physical activity may have less of an impact on daily energy expenditure than is often thought.

Most mammals, like the family dog or pet hamster, live a fast-paced life, reaching adulthood in a matter of months, reproducing prodigiously (if we let them), and dying in their teens if not well before. By comparison, humans and our primate relatives (apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lorises, and lemurs) have long childhoods, reproduce infrequently, and live exceptionally long lives. Primates' slow pace of life has long puzzled biologists because the mechanisms underlying it were unknown.

An international team of scientists working with primates in zoos, sanctuaries, and in the wild examined daily energy expenditure in 17 primate species, from gorillas to mouse lemurs, to test whether primates' slow pace of life results from a slow metabolism. Using a safe and non-invasive technique known as "doubly labeled water," which tracks the body's production of carbon dioxide, the researchers measured the number of calories that primates burned over a 10 day period. Combining these measurements with similar data from other studies, the team compared daily energy expenditure among primates to that of other mammals.

"The results were a real surprise," said Herman Pontzer, an anthropologist at Hunter College in New York and the lead author of the study. "Humans, chimpanzees, baboons, and other primates expend only half the calories we'd expect for a mammal. To put that in perspective, a human – even someone with a very physically active lifestyle – would need to run a marathon each day just to approach the average daily energy expenditure of a mammal their size."

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Euparkeria Grew Like a Warm Blooded Animal

Evidence for high bone growth rate in Euparkeria obtained using a new paleohistological inference model for the humerus

Authors:

Lucas J. Legendre, Loic Segalen & Jorge Cubo

Abstract:

The study of bone growth rate and metabolic rate evolution in archosaurs (crocodiles, dinosaurs including birds, and pterosaurs) and close outgroups has become a subject of major interest among paleontologists in recent years. In this paper, we estimate the bone growth rate of Euparkeria using a new statistical inference model for the humerus. We modified the taxonomic range of extant species used in previous studies, on which we performed quantitative measurements of histological features and bone growth rates. Bone growth rate values estimated for Euparkeria are crucial in understanding the ancestral condition for archosaurs because this taxon is considered the closest relative to the archosaur crown group. We obtained an instantaneous growth rate of 6.12 μm/day, suggesting that Euparkeria shared with other non-archosaurian archosauromorphs (Prolacerta, Proterosuchus, and Erythrosuchus) a condition of high growth rate compatible with endothermy. This derived state may have been inherited by some Triassic crurotarsans, as suggested by the high instantaneous bone growth rate (14.52 μm/day) estimated in this study for Postosuchus. Jurassic crurotarsans may have lost endothermy during the transition from terrestrial habitats and active predation to aquatic habitats and sit-and-wait predation behaviors, so that Cretaceous crocodiles may be secondarily ectothermic, as suggested by δ18O values. In conclusion, we provide new evidence for the hypothesis of an ancestral endothermic state for the last common ancestor of archosaurs, and show that non-archosaurian archosauromorphs and Triassic crurotarsans may have been characterized by a thermometabolism more similar to that of dinosaurs than to that of lepidosaurs and turtles.

Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum: An Extremophile Which Uses Rare Earth Elements in its Metabolism

Rare earths are among the most precious raw materials of all. These metals are used in mobile telephones, display screens and computers. And they are apparently indispensable for some organisms as well. A team of researchers, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, has discovered a bacterium which needs rare earths to grow - in a hot spring. Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum requires lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium or neodymium as co-factor for the enzyme methanol dehydrogenase, with which the microbes produce their energy. The use of rare earths is possibly more widespread among bacteria than previously thought.

[..]

In living organisms, the rare earths really are rare, on the other hand. As they dissolve hardly at all in water, most organisms cannot use them for their metabolism. This makes their discovery in a mudpot of volcanic origin in the Solfatara crater in Italy all the more surprising. Microbiologists from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, have found a microbe which cannot live without some of the rare earths.

Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum belongs to a group of bacteria which have chosen an extremely inhospitable habitat: They thrive best at a pH value of between 2 and 5 and temperatures of between 50 and 60 degrees - conditions which are lethal for other organisms. Methylacidiphilum even tolerates pH values below 1, which corresponds to concentrated sulphuric acid.

The microbes produce their energy from methane. They have a special enzyme, methanol dehydrogenase, which processes the methanol produced in the decomposition of methane with the aid of metal co-factors. Most of these bacteria use calcium for this process.

In the course of their investigations, the Nijmegen researchers noticed that Methylacidiphilum thrives only with original water from the mudpot. None of the trace elements which the researchers added to the Petri dishes encouraged the bacteria to grow. An analysis of the water showed that it contained concentrations of rare earths that were one hundred to one thousand times higher than normal.

Thomas Barends and Andreas Dietl from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research investigated the three-dimensional structure of methanol dehydrogenase. They thereby noticed that Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum had inserted not calcium, but an atom of a different metal in its methanol dehydrogenase.

"Suddenly, everything fit together," explains Thomas Barends. "We were able to show that this mysterious atom must be a rare earth. This is the first time ever that rare earths have been found to have such a biological function." Methylacidiphilum uses the rare earths lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium and neodymium in its methanol dehydrogenase instead of calcium. The bacterium needs them to produce energy from methane.

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Bone Histology Hints at Mosasaur Paleobiology and Evolution

Microanatomical and Histological Features in the Long Bones of Mosasaurine Mosasaurs (Reptilia, Squamata) – Implications for Aquatic Adaptation and Growth Rates

Authors:

Alexandra Houssaye, Johan Lindgren, Rodrigo Pellegrini, Andrew H. Lee, Damien Germain and Michael J. Polcyn

Abstract:
Background

During their evolution in the Late Cretaceous, mosasauroids attained a worldwide distribution, accompanied by a marked increase in body size and open ocean adaptations. This transition from land-dwellers to highly marine-adapted forms is readily apparent not only at the gross anatomic level but also in their inner bone architecture, which underwent profound modifications.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The present contribution describes, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the internal organization (microanatomy) and tissue types and characteristics (histology) of propodial and epipodial bones in one lineage of mosasauroids; i.e., the subfamily Mosasaurinae. By using microanatomical and histological data from limb bones in combination with recently acquired knowledge on the inner structure of ribs and vertebrae, and through comparisons with extant squamates and semi-aquatic to fully marine amniotes, we infer possible implications on mosasaurine evolution, aquatic adaptation, growth rates, and basal metabolic rates. Notably, we observe the occurrence of an unusual type of parallel-fibered bone, with large and randomly shaped osteocyte lacunae (otherwise typical of fibrous bone) and particular microanatomical features in Dallasaurus, which displays, rather than a spongious inner organization, bone mass increase in its humeri and a tubular organization in its femora and ribs.

Conclusions/Significance

The dominance of an unusual type of parallel-fibered bone suggests growth rates and, by extension, basal metabolic rates intermediate between that of the extant leatherback turtle, Dermochelys, and those suggested for plesiosaur and ichthyosaur reptiles. Moreover, the microanatomical features of the relatively primitive genus Dallasaurus differ from those of more derived mosasaurines, indicating an intermediate stage of adaptation for a marine existence. The more complete image of the various microanatomical trends observed in mosasaurine skeletal elements supports the evolutionary convergence between this lineage of secondarily aquatically adapted squamates and cetaceans in the ecological transition from a coastal to a pelagic lifestyle.

Do Reptile Embryos Have the Capacity to Thermoregulate?

Can Reptile Embryos Influence Their Own Rates of Heating and Cooling?

Authors:

1. Wei-Guo Du (a,b)

2. Ming-Chung Tu (a,c)

3. Rajkumar S. Radder (a)

4. Richard Shine (a)

Affiliations:

a. School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

b. Key Lab of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

c. Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

Abstract:

Previous investigations have assumed that embryos lack the capacity of physiological thermoregulation until they are large enough for their own metabolic heat production to influence nest temperatures. Contrary to intuition, reptile embryos may be capable of physiological thermoregulation. In our experiments, egg-sized objects (dead or infertile eggs, water-filled balloons, glass jars) cooled down more rapidly than they heated up, whereas live snake eggs heated more rapidly than they cooled. In a nest with diel thermal fluctuations, that hysteresis could increase the embryo’s effective incubation temperature. The mechanisms for controlling rates of thermal exchange are unclear, but may involve facultative adjustment of blood flow. Heart rates of snake embryos were higher during cooling than during heating, the opposite pattern to that seen in adult reptiles. Our data challenge the view of reptile eggs as thermally passive, and suggest that embryos of reptile species with large eggs can influence their own rates of heating and cooling.