Time Domains of Hypoxia Responses and -Omics Insights

The ability to respond rapidly to changes in oxygen tension is critical for many forms of life. Challenges to oxygen homeostasis, specifically in the contexts of evolutionary biology and biomedicine, provide important insights into mechanisms of hypoxia adaptation and tolerance. Here we synthesize findings across varying time domains of hypoxia in terms of oxygen delivery, ranging from early animal to modern human evolution and examine the potential impacts of environmental and clinical challenges through emerging multi-omics approaches. We discuss how diverse animal species have adapted to hypoxic environments, how humans vary in their responses to hypoxia (i.e., in the context of high-altitude exposure, cardiopulmonary disease, and sleep apnea), and how findings from each of these fields inform the other and lead to promising new directions in basic and clinical hypoxia research.

Crossing boundaries and building bridges: integrative zoology

The invited papers in this special issue highlight contributions to the symposium with the same title, held at Genomes to Biomes: the First Joint Meeting of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, the Canadian Society of Zoologists, and the Society of Canadian Limnologists. Today, leading researchers cross boundaries between layers of biological organization and traditional areas of expertise, and increasingly reach beyond their historical role in society to serve as public educators and science advocates. This series includes reviews of the integrative study of animals ranging from the very small (the world’s southernmost insect) to the very large (rorqual whales), a review on using ancient DNA to elucidate the physiology of long-extinct animals, and research articles that take us from the proteomic response of honey bees to Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) infection to the geographic spread of a harmful invasive earthworm in the boreal forest.