Community and shotgun metagenomic analysis of Alligator mississippiensis oral cavity and GI tracts reveal complex ecosystems and potential reservoirs of antibiotic resistance.

We report here the community structure and functional analysis of the microbiome of the Alligator mississippiensis GI tract from the oral cavity through the entirety of the digestive tract. Although many vertebrate microbiomes have been studied in recent years, the archosaur microbiome has only been given cursory attention. In the oral cavity we used amplicon-based community analysis to examine the structure of the oral microbiome during alligator development.

Defibrillate You Later, Alligator: Q10 Scaling and Refractoriness Keeps Alligators from Fibrillation.

Effective cardiac contraction during each heartbeat relies on the coordination of an electrical wave of excitation propagating across the heart. Dynamically induced heterogeneous wave propagation may fracture and initiate reentry-based cardiac arrhythmias, during which fast-rotating electrical waves lead to repeated self-excitation that compromises cardiac function and potentially results in sudden cardiac death. Species which function effectively over a large range of heart temperatures must balance the many interacting, temperature-sensitive biochemical processes to maintain normal wave propagation at all temperatures.

Regulation of myosin heavy chain antisense long noncoding RNA in human vastus lateralis in response to exercise training.

Alterations to muscle activity or loading state can induce changes in expression of myosin heavy chain (MHC). For example, sedentary individuals that initiate exercise training can induce a pronounced shift from IIx to IIa MHC. We sought to examine the regulatory response of MHC RNA in human subjects in response to exercise training.

Exercise Responses to Gravity-Independent Flywheel Aerobic and Resistance Training.

Background: Although several exercise systems have been developed to mitigate the physiological deconditioning that occurs in microgravity, few have the capacity to positively impact multiple physiological systems and still meet the volume/mass requirements needed for missions beyond low Earth orbit. The purpose of this study was to test the gravity-independent Multi-Mode Exercise Device (M-MED) for both resistance (RE) and aerobic (AE) training stimuli.

Methods: Eight men and nine women (mean age 22.

The accessory role of the diaphragmaticus muscle in lung ventilation in the estuarine crocodile Crocodylus porosus.

Crocodilians use a combination of three muscular mechanisms to effect lung ventilation: the intercostal muscles producing thoracic movement, the abdominal muscles producing pelvic rotation and gastralial translation, and the diaphragmaticus muscle producing visceral displacement. Earlier studies suggested that the diaphragmaticus is a primary muscle of inspiration in crocodilians, but direct measurements of the diaphragmatic contribution to lung ventilation and gas exchange have not been made to date. In this study, ventilation, metabolic rate and arterial blood gases were measured from juvenile estuarine crocodiles under three conditions: (i) while resting at 30°C and 20°C; (ii) while breathing hypercapnic gases; and (iii) during immediate recovery from treadmill exercise.

Masticatory motor pattern in the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus): a comparison of jaw movements in marsupial and placental herbivores.

Do closely related marsupial herbivores (Diprotodontia) conserve a common masticatory motor pattern or are motor patterns linked to the structure and function of the masticatory apparatus? We recorded the sequence and duration of activity of the individual jaw closing muscles during rhythmic chewing in koalas and then compared their motor pattern with that of their closest extant relatives, wombats, and their more distant marsupial relatives, macropodoids. These three lineages prove to have fundamentally different motor patterns and jaw movements during mastication. Each motor pattern represents independent modifications of an earlier motor pattern that was probably present in an ancestral diprotodontian.

Turning crocodilian hearts into bird hearts: growth rates are similar for alligators with and without right-to-left cardiac shunt.

The functional and possible adaptive significance of non-avian reptiles' dual aortic arch system and the ability of all non-avian reptiles to perform central vascular cardiac shunts have been of great interest to comparative physiologists. The unique cardiac anatomy of crocodilians - a four-chambered heart with the dual aortic arch system - allows for only right-to-left (R-L; pulmonary bypass) cardiac shunt and for surgical elimination of this shunt. Surgical removal of the R-L shunt, by occluding the left aorta (LAo) upstream and downstream of the foramen of Panizza, results in a crocodilian with an obligatory, avian/mammalian central circulation.

Surgical removal of right-to-left cardiac shunt in the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) causes ventricular enlargement but does not alter apnoea or metabolism during diving.

Crocodilians have complete anatomical separation between the ventricles, similar to birds and mammals, but retain the dual aortic arch system found in all non-avian reptiles. This cardiac anatomy allows surgical modification that prevents right-to-left (R-L) cardiac shunt. A R-L shunt is a bypass of the pulmonary circulation and recirculation of oxygen-poor blood back to the systemic circulation and has often been observed during the frequent apnoeic periods of non-avian reptiles, particularly during diving in aquatic species.

Phylogeny of the telencephalic subventricular zone in sauropsids: evidence for the sequential evolution of pallial and subpallial subventricular zones.

The telencephalon of birds and placental mammals harbors a proliferative subventricular zone (SVZ) in the subpallium as well as the pallium. Turtles, which are phylogenetically intermediate between bird, and mammals, exhibit at best a rudimentary SVZ. This suggests that SVZs evolved independently in mammals and birds, but it is not clear whether subpallial and pallial SVZs evolved with the origin of birds or in some earlier, non-avian sauropsid ancestor.

Exhaustive exercise training enhances aerobic capacity in American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).

The oxygen transport system in mammals is extensively remodelled in response to repeated bouts of activity, but many reptiles appear to be 'metabolically inflexible' in response to exercise training. A recent report showed that estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) increase their maximum metabolic rate in response to exhaustive treadmill training, and in the present study, we confirm this response in another crocodilian, American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis). We further specify the nature of the crocodilian training response by analysing effects of training on aerobic [citrate synthase (CS)] and anaerobic [lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)] enzyme activities in selected skeletal muscles, ventricular and skeletal muscle masses and haematocrit.

Atmospheric oxygen level affects growth trajectory, cardiopulmonary allometry and metabolic rate in the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).

Recent palaeoatmospheric models suggest large-scale fluctuations in ambient oxygen level over the past 550 million years. To better understand how global hypoxia and hyperoxia might have affected the growth and physiology of contemporary vertebrates, we incubated eggs and raised hatchlings of the American alligator. Crocodilians are one of few vertebrate taxa that survived these global changes with distinctly conservative morphology.

Impact of rhythmic oral activity on the timing of muscle activation in the swallow of the decerebrate pig.

The pharyngeal swallow can be elicited as an isolated event but, in normal animals, it occurs within the context of rhythmic tongue and jaw movement (RTJM). The response includes activation of the multifunctional geniohyoid muscle, which can either protract the hyoid or assist jaw opening; in conscious nonprimate mammals, two bursts of geniohyoid EMG activity (GHemg) occur in swallow cycles at times consistent with these two actions. However, during experimentally elicited pharyngeal swallows, GHemg classically occurs at the same time as hyoglossus and mylohyoid activity (short latency response) but, when the swallow is elicited in the decerebrate in the absence of RTJM, GHemg occurs later in the swallow (long latency response).

Exercise training enhances aerobic capacity in juvenile estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus).

Aerobic capacity (VO2max) of endothermic vertebrates is known to increase with exercise training, but this effect has not been found to-date in non-avian reptiles. We exercised juvenile estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) to walk at 0.75-0.

Function of intracoelomic septa in lung ventilation of amniotes: lessons from lizards.

Aspiration breathing is the dominant mechanism of lung inflation among extant amniotes. However, aspiration has two fundamental problems associated with it: paradoxical visceral translation and partial lung collapse. These can constrain the inspiratory tidal volume, reduce the effective lung ventilation, and ultimately curtail the aerobic capacity of an animal.

Functional morphology and evolution of aspiration breathing in tetrapods.

In the evolution of aspiration breathing, the responsibility for lung ventilation gradually shifted from the hyobranchial to the axial musculoskeletal system, with axial muscles taking over exhalation first, at the base of Tetrapoda, and then inhalation as well at the base of Amniota. This shift from hyobranchial to axial breathing freed the tongue and head to adapt to more diverse feeding styles, but generated a mechanical conflict between costal ventilation and high-speed locomotion. Some "lizards" (non-serpentine squamates) have been shown to circumvent this speed-dependent axial constraint with accessory gular pumping during locomotion, and here we present a new survey of gular pumping behavior in the tuatara and 40 lizard species.

Volume and rate of milk delivery as determinants of swallowing in an infant model animal (Sus scrofia).

The volume transported into the valleculae by the rhythmic tongue movements of suckling is considered the prime factor for initiating pharyngeal swallowing (the movement of milk out of the valleculae and through the pharynx to the esophagus). This study addressed the impact of variation in two factors on sucking (oral phase) and on swallowing (pharyngeal phase) in infant pigs, as a model for mammalian function: (1) the delivery of different-volume aliquots of milk and (2) the delivery of equal-sized aliquots at different frequencies. The number of sucks per second remained constant with change in both aliquot volume and change in the frequency of milk delivery.