Adaptations to waterlogged environments

Sensory Adaptations of Fishes to Subterranean Environments

Caves and other subterranean habitats represent one of the most challenging environments on the planet. Other than salamanders, bony fishes are the only vertebrate group that has successfully colonized and are completely restricted to those habitats. Despite being known to science for over 150 years, only recently have cavefishes become model systems for evolutionary studies. Several cavefishes...

Muscle adaptations in extreme environments

Many environmental factors may affect muscle plasticity but some have exclusive characteristics that allow them to play a key role to maintain the muscle capacity to generate force; these factors are: i) the oxygen availability and ii) the load applied to muscle fibres. Hyperbarism is a condition that occurs when a man is subjected to pressure increases. To keep the lungs from collapsing, the a...

Adaptations of Cetacean Retinal Pigments to Aquatic Environments

The underwater environment places unique constraints on the vision of cetaceans compared to their terrestrial mammalian counterparts. Water absorbs and filters light affecting both the intensity and spectral distribution of light available for vision. Therefore, the aquatic environment restricts the spectral distribution of photons and limits the distance at which objects may be observed. The c...

Modeling Environments: Interactive Causation and Adaptations to Environmental Conditions

Hydrogenosomes: convergent adaptations of mitochondria to anaerobic environments.

Hydrogenosomes are membrane-bound organelles that compartmentalise the final steps of energy metabolism in a number of anaerobic eukaryotes. They produce hydrogen and ATP. Here we will review the data, which are relevant for the questions: how did the hydrogenosomes originate, and what was their ancestor? Notably, there is strong evidence that hydrogenosomes evolved several times as adaptations...