Thermoregulation in endothermic insects

On the basis of body weight, most flying insects have higher rates of metabolism, and hence heat production, than other animals. However, rapid rates of cooling because of small body size in most cases precludes appreciable endothermy. The body temperature of small flies in flight is probably close to ambient temperature, and that of flying butterflies and locusts is 5 degrees to 10 degrees C above ambient temperature. Many moths and bumblebees are insulated with scales and hair, and their metabolism during flight can cause the temperature of the flight muscles to increase 20 degrees to 30 degrees C above ambient temperature. Curiously, those insects which (because of size, insulation) retain the most heat in the thorax during flight, also require the highest muscle temperature in order to maintain sufficient power output to continue flight. The minimum muscle temperature for flight varies widely between different species, while the maximum temperature varies over the relatively narrow range of 40 degrees to 45 degrees C. As a consequence, those insects that necessarily generate high muscle temperatures during flight must maintain their thoracic temperature within a relatively narrow range during flight. Active heat loss from the thorax to the abdomen prevents overheating of the flight motor and allows some large moths to be active over a wide range of ambient temperatures. Bumblebees similarly transfer heat from the flight musculature into the abdomen while incubating their brood by abdominal contact. Many of the larger insects would remain grounded if they did not actively increase the temperature of their flight muscles prior to flight. Male tettigoniid grasshoppers elevate their thoracic temperature prior to singing. In addition, some of the social Hymenoptera activate the "flight" muscles specifically to produce heat not only prior to flight but also during nest temperature regulation. During this "shivering" the "flight" muscles are often activated in patterns different from those during flight. The muscles contract primarily against each other rather than on the wings. However, the rate of heat production during shivering and flight is primarily a function of the action potential frequency rather than of the patterns of activation. Thermoregulation is a key factor in the energetics of foraging of some of the flower-visiting insects. The higher their muscle temperature the more flowers they can visit per unit time. When food supplies are ample, bees may invest relatively large amounts of energy for thermoregulation. While shivering to maintain high body temperatures during the short intervals they are perched on flowers (as well as while in the nest), bumblebees often expend energy at rates similar to the rates of energy expenditure in flight. Unlike vertebrates, which usually regulate their body temperature at specific set points, the body temperature of insects is labile. It often appears to be maintained near the lower temperature at which the muscles are able to perform the function at hand. The insects' thermal adaptations may not differ as much from those of vertebrates as previously supposed when size, anatomy, and energy requirements are taken into account.     

Keeping a cool head: honeybee thermoregulation

At high ambient temperatures, honeybees regulate head teriperature by evaporative cooling of regurgitated honeycrop contents. Thoracic temperature is secondarily stabilized as heat flows from thorax to head by means of passive conduction and physiological facilitation resulting from accelerated blood flow. The mechanism permits flight at the extraordinarily high ambient temperature of 46 degrees C without overheating the head and thorax despite prodigious amounts of heat produced as a by-product of flight metabolism. In contrast, at low ambient temperatures, thoracic rather than head temperature is regulated; no liquid is regurgitated, and the head is heated passively by conduction both in flight and while stationary.     

1-MCP对鹤望兰切花贮运保鲜的适宜熏蒸模式

研究鹤望兰鲜切花在2μL.L-1新型乙烯抑制剂1-甲基环丙烯（1-MCP）熏蒸处理下,不同贮运温度、熏蒸时间和重复熏蒸与否对鹤望兰贮运期间生理代谢指标（切花失水率、乙烯释放量、花瓣细胞膜透性、花瓣花青素、次花的开放率和保鲜率）的影响。结果表明：在常温（25℃）和冷藏（12℃）条件下均适合鹤望兰鲜切花贮运,但冷藏贮运（12℃）保鲜效果较好。2种贮运温度下6h和24h熏蒸处理均能极显著地抑制乙烯的释放,提高切花的保鲜率,促进次花的开放,其中,6h熏蒸处理保鲜效果较好。鹤望兰切花不需要重复熏蒸处理。因此,2μL.L-11-MCP对鹤望兰鲜切花贮运保鲜的最佳熏蒸模式为冷藏贮运（12℃）下6h熏蒸处理。而常温（25℃）贮运下6h熏蒸处理是经济、有效、方便的模式。     

Regulation of oxygen consumption and body temperature during torpor in a hummingbird, Eulampis jugularis

The West Indian hummingbird, Eulampis jugularis, maintained its body temperature in torpor at 18 degrees to 20 degrees C over an ambient temperature range of 2.5 degrees to 18 degrees C. At ambient below 18 degrees C oxygen consumption during torpor increased linearly with decreasing temperature. Thermal conductances were the same for resting and torpid Eulampis regulating their body temperatures at 40 degrees and 18 degrees C, respectively.     

Freeze avoidance in a mammal: body temperatures below 0 degree C in an Arctic hibernator

Hibernating arctic ground squirrels, Spermophilus parryii, were able to adopt and spontaneously arouse from core body temperatures as low as -2.9 degrees C without freezing. Abdominal body temperatures of ground squirrels hibernating in outdoor burrows were recorded with temperature-sensitive radiotransmitter implants. Body temperatures and soil temperatures at hibernaculum depth reached average minima during February of -1.9 degrees and -6 degrees C, respectively. Laboratory-housed ground squirrels hibernating in ambient temperatures of -4.3 degrees C maintained above 0 degree C thoracic temperatures but decreased colonic temperatures to as low as -1.3 degrees C. Plasma sampled from animals with below 0 degree C body temperatures had normal solute concentrations and showed no evidence of containing antifreeze molecules.     

Thoracic Temperature Stabilization byn Blood Circulation in a Free-Flying Moth

The sphinx moth, Manduca sexta, maintains its thoracic temperature within a degree of 42 degrees C while in free flight over a range of air temperatures from about 17 degrees to 32 degrees C. Tying off the dorsal vessel abolishes temperature control. Moths with tied off vessels overheat and then stop flying at air temperatures of about 23 degrees C. However, flight at this temperature is possible when the thoracic scales are removed. The mechanism of temperature control involves transfer of the heat produced in the thorax to the blood pumped from the dorsal vessel, and the subsequent dissipation of this heat when the blood returns to the relatively cool abdomen.     

Flight of Winter Moths Near 0{degrees}C

Some noctuid winter moths fly at near 0 degrees C by maintaining an elevated(30 degrees to 35 degrees C) thoracic muscle temperature. Geometrid winter moths sustain themselves in free flight at subzero muscle temperatures. However, the temperature characteristics of citrate synthase and pyruvate kinase from both of these different kinds of moths and from a sphinx moth that flies with a muscles temperature of 40 degrees C are nearly identical. Furthermore, mass-specific rates of energy expenditure of both kinds of winter moths are also similar at given thoracic temperature (near 0 degrees C). The geometrids that are able to fly with a thoracic temperature near 0 degrees C do so largely because of unusually low wing-loading, which permits a low energetic cost of flight.     

Temperature regulation by the inflorescence of philodendron

The inflorescence of Philodendron selloum temporarily maintains a core temperature of 38 degrees to 46 degrees C, despite air temperatures ranging from 4 degrees to 39 degrees C, by means of a variable metabolic rate. The heat is produced primarily by small, sterile male flowers that are capable of consuming oxygen at rates approaching those of flying hummingbirds and sphinx moths.     

Heat production and temperature regulation in eastern skunk cabbage

The spadix of Symplocarpus foetidus L. maintains an internal temperature 15 degrees to 35 degrees C above ambient air temperatures of -15 degrees to +15 degrees C. For at least 14 days it consumes oxygen at a rate comparable to that of homeothermic animals of equivalent size. Temperature regulation is accomplished by variations in respiratory rate.     

Feeding and core temperature in albino rats: changes induced by preoptic heating and cooling

At an ambient temperature of 25 degrees C, selective cooling of the area preoptica medialis to 24 degrees +/- 1 degrees C produced a significant decrease in food intake together with hyperthermia. Heating the same area to 43 degrees +/- 1 degrees C resulted in the opposite effects. At an ambient temperature of 35 degrees C, heating the area preoptica medialis to 43 degrees C resulted in a decrease in food intake despite concomitant hypothermia.     

Temperature tolerances of some closely related tropical atlantic and pacific fish species

Species of Pacific shallow-water fish are more tolerant of low temperatures than Atlantic species are. At high temperatures Atlantic species are more tolerant than Pacific species. For species pairs of Bathygobius differences in the tolerance of low temperatures are small and can be removed by acclimation to 23 degrees C. Differences in the tolerance to low temperature in transisthmian species of Apogon, however, are large and persist after acclimation to 23 degrees C. Some Pacific species adapt to the cooler temperatures of their habitat through increasing their rates of oxygen consumption at ambient temperatures or decreasing the dependence of oxygen uptake rate on temperature, or both.     

Oyster herpes-type virus

A herpes-type virus infection, the first to be found in an invertebrate animal, is reported in the oyster Crassostrea virginica. Intranuclear herpes-type viral inclusions were more prevalent in the oyster at elevated water temperatures of 28 degrees to 30 degrees C than at normal ambient temperatures of 18 degrees to 20 degrees C. The inclusions were associated with a lethal disease at the elevated temperatures.     

冷藏对石蒜鳞茎休眠生理及开花的影响

为掌握冷藏对石蒜(Lycoris radiata)鳞茎休眠生理及开花的影响,研究了石蒜球根在6和9℃低温下分别冷藏4、7、9周后,鳞茎尖内的生理变化,并观察其开花时间.结果表明:在6℃冷藏4周花期推迟19d;9℃冷藏4周花期推迟12d;6、9℃条件下冷藏7和9周均未开花.在6℃冷藏4周条件下,蛋白质和核酸质量分数均保持着较低的水平;同时对内源激素质量摩尔浓度测定表明内源激素IAA极显著对花期具有影响作用,ABA、ZR也具有影响花期的作用,而内源激素GA3质量摩尔浓度变化对开花无显著影响.     

Martian surface paleotemperatures from thermochronology of meteorites

The temporal evolution of past martian surface temperatures is poorly known. We used thermochronology and published noble gas and petrographic data to constrain the temperature histories of the nakhlites and martian meteorite ALH84001. We found that the nakhlites have not been heated to more than 350 degrees C since they formed. Our calculations also suggest that for most of the past 4 billion years, ambient near-surface temperatures on Mars are unlikely to have been much higher than the present cold (<0 degrees C) state.     

温度和叶表化学物质对松杨栅锈菌夏孢子萌发的影响

松杨栅锈菌夏孢子萌发适宜温度范围为10～24℃,最适温度20℃左右。供试的2菌株对温度有不同的依赖性。TH菌株温度适应性范围较宽,GL菌株较窄。在最适温度范围内,供试的2个菌株呈现相同的萌发动力学模式,萌发最大速率出现在4～12h,温度越高,最大萌发速率出现时间越晚,并随时间的延长,萌发速率逐渐减小。在5、30℃,萌发速率有2～3个峰值,第1峰值最大,第2、第3峰值逐渐减小或消失。26℃下峰值呈现过渡型状态,有1个较小的次高峰。供试的2菌株,TH的萌发速率较GL稍高并在出现时间上略前。最适萌发条件下,石油醚、乙醚、乙酸乙酯、正丁醇、水的卜氏杨和毛白杨提取物对松杨栅锈菌夏孢子萌发有不同的影响。毛白杨所有提取物在接种12h内,均抑制夏孢子的萌发,而卜氏杨乙醚提取物则促进夏孢子萌发,其余则抑制夏孢子萌发。所有水提取物在接种12h均表现为抑制作用。接种12～24h,2种杨树叶片正丁醇萃取物对夏孢子萌发速率均有一定程度的促进作用。     

杭白菊加工过程及处理温度对吡虫啉残留的影响

研究分析杭白菊加工过程中吡虫啉的残留变化,以及温度对样品加工过程中吡虫啉残留的影响。对不同生产原料的吡虫啉残留分析,发现推荐剂量吡虫啉制剂喷药2次,收获间隔期为21d的杭白菊胎菊和朵菊符合安全生产要求。杭白菊加工过程包括蒸青、烘干、晾干等3个工序,胎菊鲜样和朵菊鲜样中吡虫啉的残留量在蒸青过程分别损失6.36%、8.71%,在烘干过程分别损失3.99%、4.48%,在晾干过程分别损失13.18%、29.60%,吡虫啉主要损失于加工过程中的晾干步骤。杭白菊干样的吡虫啉残留含量要显著高于鲜样,加工对吡虫啉有浓缩作用。加工时不同温度下吡虫啉在样品中的减少率不同,相同时间下,烘干的农药减少率大于晾干,温度升高有利于吡虫啉的降解。     

New phases of c60 synthesized at high pressure

The fullerene C(60) can be converted into two different structures by high pressure and temperature. They are metastable and revert to pristine C(60) on reheating to 300 degrees C at ambient pressure. For synthesis temperatures between 300 degrees and 400 degrees C and pressures of 5 gigapascals, a nominal face-centered-cubic structure is produced with a lattice parameter a(o) = 13.6 angstroms. When treated at 500 degrees to 800 degrees C at the same pressure, C(60) transforms into a rhombohedral structure with hexagonal lattice parameters of a(o) = 9.22 angstroms and c(o) = 24.6 angstroms. The intermolecular distance is small enough that a chemical bond can form, in accord with the reduced solubility of the pressure-induced phases. Infrared, Raman, and nuclear magnetic resonance studies show a drastic reduction of icosahedral symmetry, as might occur if the C(60) molecules are linked.     

Starch accumulation associated with growth reduction at low temperatures in a tropical plant

Growth of Digitaria decumbens is severely reduced by night temperatures of 10 degrees C or below. Ultra-structure of leaves and chemical analyses show a high starch content in chloroplasts of plants illuminated and kept at a temperature of 30 degrees C. This starch disappears after a period in the dark at 30 degrees C, but it remains if the temperature during the dark period is 10 degrees C. The inhibition or slowing of starch translocation out of chloroplasts appears to account for reduced photo-synthesis and growth at low night temperatures.     

Brain and body temperatures in a panting lizard

Panting in Sauromalus obesus is effective enough to keep deep body temperature (T(C)) and brain temperature (T(B)) below an ambient temperature of 45 degrees C for extended periods of time and has a greater cooling effect on the brain than on the remainder of the body. Six animals maintained T(C) and T(B) 0.9 degrees C (+/- 0.08 standard error) and 2.7 degrees C (+/- 0.2 standard error) respectively lower than the ambient temperature of 45 degrees C. It is possible that intracranial vascular shunts play a role in cranial cooling during panting.     

Life at high temperatures

Water environments with temperatures up to and above boiling are commonly found in association with geothermal activity. At temperatures above 60 degrees C, only bacteria are found. Bacteria with temperature optima over the range 65 degrees to 105 degrees C have been obtained in pure culture and are the object of many research projects. The upper temperature limit for life in liquid water has not yet been defined, but is likely to be somewhere between 110 degrees and 200 degrees C, since amino acids and nucleotides are destroyed at temperatures over 200 degrees C. Because bacteria capable of growth at high temperatures are found in many phylogenetic groups, it is likely that the ability to grow at high temperature had a polyphyletic origin. The macromolecules of these organisms are inherently more stable to heat than those of conventional organisms, but only small changes in sequence can lead to increases in thermostability. Because of their unique properties, thermophilic organisms and their enzymes have many potential biotechnological uses, and extensive research on industrial applications is under way.