Deleterious effects of thermal and water stresses on life history and physiology: a case study on woodlouse

We tested independently the influences of increasing temperature and decreasing moisture on life history and physiological traits in the arthropod  Armadillidium vulgare. Both increasing temperature and decreasing moisture led reproductive success to decrease. While the density of immune cells decreased and the β-galactosidase activity increased with increasing temperature and decreasing moisture, which suggests a negative impact of these stressors on individual performance, increased temperature and decreased moisture affected differently the other biomarkers conjuring different underlying mechanisms depending on the stress applied. Our findings demonstrate overall a negative impact of high temperature and low moisture on woodlouse welfare. Changing temperature or moisture had slightly different effects, illustrating the need to test further the respective role of each of these key components of climate change on organisms to predict more reliably the future of our ecosystems

Reproductive senescence and parental effects in an indeterminate grower

International audienceReproductive senescence is the decrease of reproductive performance with increasing age and can potentially include trans-generational effects as the offspring produced by old parents might have a lower fitness than those produced by young parents. This negative effect may be caused either by the age of the father, mother, or the interaction between the ages of both parents. Using the common woodlouse Armadillidium vulgare, an indeterminate grower, as a biological model, we tested for the existence of a deleterious effect of parental age on fitness components. Contrary to previous findings reported from vertebrate studies, old parents produced both a higher number and larger offspring than young parents. However, their offspring had lower fitness components (by surviving less, producing a smaller number of clutches, or not reproducing at all) than offspring born to young parents. Our findings strongly support the existence of trans-generational senescence in woodlice and contradict the belief that old individuals in indeterminate growers contribute the most to recruitment and correspond thereby to the key life stage for population dynamics. Our work also provides rare evidence that the trans-generational effect of senescence can be stronger than direct reproductive senescence in indeterminate growers

Deleterious effects of thermal and water stresses on life history and physiology: a case study on woodlouse

International audienceWe tested independently the influences of increasing temperature and decreasing mois- ture on life history and physiological traits in the arthropod Armadillidium vulgare. Both increasing temperature and decreasing moisture led reproductive success to decrease. While the density of immune cells decreased and the β-galactosidase activity increased with increasing temperature and decreasing moisture, which suggests a negative im- pact of these stressors on individual performance, increased temperature and decreased moisture affected differently the other biomarkers conjuring different underlying mech- anisms depending on the stress applied. Our findings demonstrate overall a negative impact of high temperature and low moisture on woodlouse welfare. Changing temper- ature or moisture had slightly different effects, illustrating the need to test further the respective role of each of these key components of climate change on organisms to predict more reliably the future of our ecosystems

Deleterious effects of thermal and water stresses on life history and physiology: a case study on woodlouse

International audienceWe tested independently the influences of increasing temperature and decreasing mois- ture on life history and physiological traits in the arthropod Armadillidium vulgare. Both increasing temperature and decreasing moisture led reproductive success to decrease. While the density of immune cells decreased and the β-galactosidase activity increased with increasing temperature and decreasing moisture, which suggests a negative im- pact of these stressors on individual performance, increased temperature and decreased moisture affected differently the other biomarkers conjuring different underlying mech- anisms depending on the stress applied. Our findings demonstrate overall a negative impact of high temperature and low moisture on woodlouse welfare. Changing temper- ature or moisture had slightly different effects, illustrating the need to test further the respective role of each of these key components of climate change on organisms to predict more reliably the future of our ecosystems

The crustacean Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1804) (Isopoda: Oniscoidea), a new promising model for the study of cellular senescence

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