| phenotypic flexibility in cutaneous water loss and lipids of the stratum corneum. | when vertebrates invaded land during the carboniferous period, they were exposed not only to new ecological opportunities but also to a desiccating environment. to maintain cellular water homeostasis, natural selection modified the integument of pioneering terrestrial animals, enabling them to reduce water loss through the skin. in desert environments, where ambient temperatures (t(a)) can reach 50 degrees c, relative humidities are low and drinking water is scarce, integumentary modifications t ... | 2003 | 12966049 |
| cutaneous and respiratory water loss in larks from arid and mesic environments. | birds from deserts generally have lower total evaporative water loss (tewl), the sum of cutaneous (cwl) and respiratory water loss (rwl), than species from mesic areas. we investigated the role of cwl and rwl as a function of air temperature (t(a)) in hoopoe larks (alaemon alaudipes) and dunn's larks (eremalauda dunni) from the arabian desert and skylarks (alauda arvensis) and woodlarks (lullula arborea) from temperate mesic grasslands. the proportional contribution of cwl to tewl in all larks a ... | 2013 | 12601615 |
| physiological adjustments to arid and mesic environments in larks (alaudidae). | because deserts are characterized by low food availability, high ambient temperature extremes, and absence of drinking water, one might expect that birds that live in these conditions exhibit a lower basal metabolic rate (bmr), reduced total evaporative water loss (tewl), and greater ability to cope with high air temperatures than their mesic counterparts. to minimize confounding effects of phylogeny, we compared the physiological performance of four species of larks at ambient temperatures (t(a ... | 2006 | 12177833 |
| multilocus phylogeny of the avian family alaudidae (larks) reveals complex morphological evolution, non-monophyletic genera and hidden species diversity. | the alaudidae (larks) is a large family of songbirds in the superfamily sylvioidea. larks are cosmopolitan, although species-level diversity is by far largest in africa, followed by eurasia, whereas australasia and the new world have only one species each. the present study is the first comprehensive phylogeny of the alaudidae. it includes 83.5% of all species and representatives from all recognised genera, and was based on two mitochondrial and three nuclear loci (in total 6.4 kbp, although not ... | 2013 | 23792153 |