Insects at low temperatures: an ecological perspective

Sinclair, Brent J.; Vernon, Philippe; Klok, C. Jaco; Chown, Steven L.

doi:10.1016/s0169-5347(03)00014-4

Cited by 374 publications

(290 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The large majority of polar Acari and Collembola are known to employ the freeze avoidance tactic (Sinclair et al, 2003;Everatt et al 2014). The use of the alternative cryoprotective dehydration strategy by the springtail Megaphorura arctica, a distinctive species not present in the current study, has also been documented (Worland et al, 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Survival of rapidly fluctuating natural low winter temperatures by High Arctic soil invertebrates

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Abbandonato

Bergan

et al. 2015

Journal of Thermal Biology

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The extreme polar environment creates challenges for the resident invertebrate communities and the stress tolerance of some of these animals has been examined over many years. However, although it is well appreciated that standard air temperature records often fail to describe accurately conditions experienced at microhabitat level, few studies have explicitly set out to link field conditions experienced by natural multispecies communities with the more detailed laboratory ecophysiological studies of a small number of 'representative' species. This is particularly the case during winter, when snow cover may insulate terrestrial habitats from 3 extreme air temperature fluctuations. Further, climate projections suggest large changes in precipitation will occur in the polar regions, with the greatest changes expected during the winter period and, hence, implications for the insulation of overwintering microhabitats. To assess survival of natural High Arctic soil invertebrate communities contained in soil and vegetation cores to natural winter temperature variations, the overwintering temperatures they experienced were manipulated by deploying cores in locations with varying snow accumulation: No Snow, Shallow Snow (30cm) and Deep Snow (120cm). Air temperatures during the winter period fluctuated frequently between +3 and -24°C, and the No Snow soil temperatures reflected this variation closely, with the extreme minimum being slightly lower. Under 30cm of snow, soil temperatures varied less and did not decrease below -12°C. Those under deep snow were even more stable and did not decline below -2°C. Despite these striking differences in winter thermal regimes, there were no clear differences in survival of the invertebrate fauna between treatments, including oribatid, prostigmatid and mesostigmatid mites, Araneae, Collembola, Nematocera larvae or Coleoptera. This indicates widespread tolerance, previously undocumented for the Araneae, Nematocera or Coleoptera, of both direct exposure to at least -24°C and the rapid and large temperature fluctuations. These results suggest that the studied polar soil invertebrate community may be robust to at least one important predicted consequence of projected climate change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Survival of rapidly fluctuating natural low winter temperatures by High Arctic soil invertebrates

Convey

Abbandonato

Bergan

et al. 2015

Journal of Thermal Biology

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“…One of the most amenable and studied group of organisms is the arthropoda where such physiological processes are well documented (Salt, 1961;Lee and Denlinger, 1991;Sømme, 1995;Sinclair et al, 2003a). These organisms have evolved two distinct strategies to survive sub-zero temperatures termed freeze tolerance and freeze avoidance (Cannon and Block, 1988;Block, 1990 see also Bale, 1993 for more ecologically-refined schemes of classificiation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold hardening processes in the Antarctic springtail, Cryptopygus antarcticus: Clues from a microarray

Purać

Burns

Thorne

et al. 2008

Journal of Insect Physiology

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The physiology of the Antarctic microarthropod, Cryptopygus antarcticus, has been well studied, particularly with regard to its ability to withstand low winter temperatures. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are still poorly understood. 1180 sequences (Expressed Sequence Tags or ESTs) were generated and analyzed, from populations of C. antarcticus. This represents the first publicly available sequence data for this species. A sub-set (672 clones) were used to generate a small microarray to examine the differences in gene expression between summer acclimated cold tolerant and non-cold tolerant springtails. Although 60% of the clones showed no sequence similarity to annotated genes in the datasets, of those where putative function could be inferred via database homology, there was a clear pattern of up-regulation of structural proteins being associated with the cold tolerant group. These structural proteins mainly comprised cuticle proteins and provide support for the recent theory that summer SCP variation within Collembola species could be a consequence of moulting, with moulting populations having lowered SCPs.

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“…Although the physiological study of insect cold tolerance has focused largely on the ability (or otherwise) of insects to survive internal ice formation (Salt, 1961), the vast majority of insects are neither freeze tolerant nor freeze avoiding, but die at some temperature before they freeze ("non-freezing cold injury" or "pre-freeze mortality," see Sinclair et al (2003); Baust and Rojas (1985)). A number of insects that suffer from non-freezing cold injury are nevertheless able to rapidly alter their tolerance of acute cold exposure by rapid cold-hardening (RCH; Lee et al, 1987), whereby low temperature tolerance is greatly enhanced by a short pre-exposure to a milder low temperature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of carbon dioxide anesthesia and anoxia on rapid cold-hardening and chill coma recovery in Drosophila melanogaster

Nilson

Sinclair

Roberts

2006

Journal of Insect Physiology

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114

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Carbon dioxide gas is used as an insect anesthetic in many laboratories, despite recent studies which have shown that CO 2 can alter behavior and fitness. We examine the effects of CO 2 and anoxia (N 2 ) on cold tolerance, measuring the rapid cold-hardening (RCH) response and chill coma recovery in Drosophila melanogaster. Short exposures to CO 2 or N 2 do not significantly affect RCH, but 60 min of exposure negates RCH. Exposure to CO 2 anesthesia increases chill coma recovery time, but this effect disappears if the flies are given 90 min recovery in air before chill coma induction. Flies treated with N 2 show a similar pattern, but require significantly longer chill coma recovery times even after 90 min of recovery from anoxia. Our results suggest that CO 2 anesthesia is an acceptable way to manipulate flies before cold tolerance experiments (when using RCH or chill coma recovery as a measure), provided exposure duration is minimized and recovery is permitted before chill coma induction. However, we recommend that exposure to N 2 not be used as a method of anesthesia for chill coma studies.

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Insects at low temperatures: an ecological perspective

Cited by 374 publications

References 56 publications

Survival of rapidly fluctuating natural low winter temperatures by High Arctic soil invertebrates

Survival of rapidly fluctuating natural low winter temperatures by High Arctic soil invertebrates

Cold hardening processes in the Antarctic springtail, Cryptopygus antarcticus: Clues from a microarray

The effects of carbon dioxide anesthesia and anoxia on rapid cold-hardening and chill coma recovery in Drosophila melanogaster

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