- 1.
Pre- and post-dive breathing patterns, blood oxygenation and acid-base balance have been examined in voluntarily and forcibly submerged Xenopus laevis.
- 2.
Enforced 30-min dives led to a large acidosis with both respiratory (CO2) and metabolic (lactic acid) components. Complete recovery of the arterial blood variables after such dives took more than 4h.
- 3.
Lung ventilation (measured by a pneumotachograph) following enforced dives was always markedly elevated compared with levels either before or after voluntary dives of the same duration.
- 4.
In undisturbed Xenopus, diving freely for periods of 30 min or more, there was no accumulation of lactic acid and the fall in blood oxygen, increase in CO2 and the associated respiratory acidosis were all corrected within the first few breaths upon surfacing.
- 5.
The evidence presented here leads us to conclude that anaerobiosis is unimportant during voluntary dives, even when these are of considerable duration.
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
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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
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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.
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