Temperate plants develop a greater ability to withstand freezing in response to a period of low but nonfreezing temperatures through a complex, adaptive process of cold acclimation. Very little is known about the signaling processes by which plants perceive the low temperature stimulus and transduce it into the nucleus to activate genes needed for increased freezing tolerance. To help understan...

The banded woolly bear caterpillar, Pyrrharctia isabella (Lepidoptera: Erebidae), overwinters in leaf litter and survives freezing under natural conditions. Following 18 weeks of cold acclimation at 5°C, all caterpillars could survive 1 week of continuous freezing at -20°C or seven cycles of freezing-thawing at -20°C, but none survived freezing at -80°C. Field-collected caterpillars had a tempe...

In recent years, it has been shown that humans have active brown adipose tissue (BAT) depots, raising the question of whether activation and recruitment of BAT can be a target to counterbalance the current obesity pandemic. Here, we show that a 10-day cold acclimation protocol in humans increases BAT activity in parallel with an increase in nonshivering thermogenesis (NST). No sex differences i...

Cold acclimation is an important process by which plants respond to low temperature and enhance their winter hardiness. C-REPEAT BINDING FACTOR1 (CBF1), CBF2, and CBF3 genes were shown previously to participate in cold acclimation in Medicago truncatula In addition, MtCBF4 is transcriptionally induced by salt, drought, and cold stresses. We show here that MtCBF4, shown previously to enhance dro...

Terrestrial ectotherms are challenged by variation in both mean and variance of temperature. Phenotypic plasticity (thermal acclimation) might mitigate adverse effects, however, we lack a fundamental understanding of the molecular mechanisms of thermal acclimation and how they are affected by fluctuating temperature. Here we investigated the effect of thermal acclimation in Drosophila melanogas...

β-cyclocitral (β-CC), a volatile oxidized derivative of β-carotene, can upregulate the expression of defence genes to enhance excess light (EL) acclimation. However, the signalling cascades underlying this process remain unclear. In this study, salicylic acid (SA) is involved in alleviating damage to promote β-CC-enhanced EL acclimation. In early stages of EL illumination, β-CC pretreatment ind...

This study investigated the between trial variation of thermoregulatory measures during a heat acclimation protocol. Eight 14-16 y old boys completed three bouts of 20-min cycling at 45 % peak VO2 in a hot environment (35.1 ± 1.2 °C and 46. 4 ± 1.0 % relative humidity) on two occasions separated by a minimum of 24 h. Reliability was assessed through analysis of within-subject variation, the cha...

1. Effects of temperature on the muscle fibre membrane and synapses of stretcher muscle preparations made from autotomized limbs of the Pacific shore crab (Pachygrapsus crassipes) were investigated. 2. Acclimation of the crabs to different temperatures modified properties of both muscle fibre membrane and synapses. 3. Increased temperature produced an increase in membrane potential of the muscl...

Enhanced soil respiration in response to global warming may substantially increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations above the anthropogenic contribution, depending on the mechanisms underlying the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. Here, we compared short-term and seasonal responses of soil respiration to a shifting thermal environment and variable substrate availability via laboratory ...

Terrestrial plants experience multiple stresses when they are submerged, caused both by oxygen deficiency due to reduced gas diffusion in water, and by shade due to high turbidity of the floodwater. It has been suggested that responses to submergence are de facto responses to low light intensity. We investigated the extent to which submergence and shade induce similar acclimation responses by c...