Embryonic diapause (ED) is a temporary arrest of embryo development and is characterized by delayed implantation in the uterus. ED occurs in blastocysts of less than 2% of mammalian species, including the mouse (Mus musculus). If ED were an evolutionarily conserved phenomenon, then it should be inducible in blastocysts of normally non-diapausing mammals, such as domestic species. To prove this ...

Diapause is a fundamental component of the life cycle in the majority of insects living in environments characterized by strong seasonality. The present study addresses poorly understood associations and trade-offs between endogenous diapause duration, thermal sensitivity of development, energetic cost of development and cold tolerance. Diapause intensity, metabolic rate trajectories and lipid ...

Dormancy is a common adaptation in invertebrates to survive harsh conditions. Triggered by environmental cues, populations produce resting eggs that allow them to survive temporally unsuitable conditions. Daphnia magna is a crustacean that reproduces by cyclical parthenogenesis, alternating between the production of asexual offspring and the sexual reproduction of diapausing eggs (ephippia). Pr...

BACKGROUND Global warming is characterized by not only an increase in the daily mean temperature, but also a diel asymmetric pattern. However, most of the current studies on climate change have only concerned with the mean values of the warming trend. Although many studies have been conducted concerning the responses of insects to climate change, studies that address the issue of diel asymmetri...

BACKGROUND A wide range of insects living at higher latitudes enter diapause at the end of the warm season, which increases their chances of survival through harsh winter conditions. In this study we used RNA sequencing to identify genes involved in adult reproductive diapause in a northern fly species, Drosophila montana. Both diapausing and non-diapausing flies were reared under a critical da...

Winter survival of organisms has a crucial effect on their fitness in a seasonal environment. We tested whether overwinter survival of male water striders, Aquarius najas (De Geer) (Heteroptera: Gerridae), is associated with the time of season they leave the water for winter diapause. This was performed by comparing parameters of males leaving the water at the beginning of autumn and 1 month la...

Monoterpenoids and low pressure have each been demonstrated to cause mortality of stored-product insect pests. The current report investigated the prospects of integrating the two methods in the management of diapausing and nondiapausing larvae of Plodia interpunctella (Hübner). In a separate experiment, the larvae were exposed to 35.5 mmHg in Erlenmeyer flasks at 19 and 28 degrees C for times ...

Heat shock proteins (Hsps) are a ubiquitous component of the cellular response to stress in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, but their role and function during desiccation stress in terrestrial arthropods has received limited attention. Molecular responses to rehydration are arguably as important as those to desiccation in maintaining cellular integrity and enzyme activity, but the ro...