Italy

The capacities to move fast and over long durations are primary determinants of animal survival. Complex environments as steep terrains or high-acceleration escape manoeuvres further challenge locomotion by demanding high propulsive force capacities to overcome elevation or inertia. Based on the force-velocity relationship characterising an individual&#39;s maximal propulsive capacities, we propose a theoretical Force-Velocity-Endurance (FoVE) model that integrates fatigue resistance and propulsive capacities during long-duration efforts. FoVE profiling could connects physiological limits to spontaneous behaviour and illustrates how selective pressures like steep gradients drives the evolution of force-oriented endurance. Because laboratory testing is infeasible for wild species, humans provide a unique paradigm to bridge controlled experiments and spontaneous field activity. FoVE profiles of 22 trail runners were derived from in natura GPS data using the record-profile method, and then used to predict critical velocities, sustainable over long durations, under various force constraints (weighted sledges). Predictions were compared against laboratory evaluations to test model accuracy. Results showed a strong correlation between field-derived and laboratory critical velocities across all force conditions (r=0.913; p&lt;0.001), with moderate systematic and random errors (0.14 m.s-1 , 4.9%, and 0.41 m.s-1 , 14.4%, respectively). These findings demonstrate that field-based GPS data provide accurate FoVE profiles, turning the steps of human participants into a promising step forward for assessing locomotion capacities in wild mountain-dwelling animals. This framework was then applied exploratorily to Capra ibex, comparing their uphill capacities with human profiles. This illustrates how integrating force and endurance dimensions, often overlooked in animals, opens new possibilities in ecophysiology and evolution.

SEB Conference 2026

From trail runners to alpine ibex: a Force-Velocity-Endurance framework linking physiological limits and spontaneous movements

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SEB Conference 2024

SEB’s Annual Conference is celebrated for creating the perfect composition of research, new discoveries and collaborative connections. Be creative and innovative by exchanging ideas and knowledge with masters of biology from all over the world.

The capacities to move fast and over long durations are primary determinants of animal survival. Complex environments as steep terrains or high-acceleration escape manoeuvres further challenge locomotion by demanding high propulsive force capacities to overcome elevation or inertia. Based on the force-velocity relationship characterising an individual's maximal propulsive capacities, we propose a theoretical Force-Velocity-Endurance (FoVE) model that integrates fatigue resistance and propulsive capacities during long-duration efforts. FoVE profiling could connects physiological limits to spontaneous behaviour and illustrates how selective pressures like steep gradients drives the evolution of force-oriented endurance. Because laboratory testing is infeasible for wild species, humans provide a unique paradigm to bridge controlled experiments and spontaneous field activity. FoVE profiles of 22 trail runners were derived from in natura GPS data using the record-profile method, and then used to predict critical velocities, sustainable over long durations, under various force constraints (weighted sledges). Predictions were compared against laboratory evaluations to test model accuracy. Results showed a strong correlation between field-derived and laboratory critical velocities across all force conditions (r=0.913; p<0.001), with moderate systematic and random errors (0.14 m.s-1 , 4.9%, and 0.41 m.s-1 , 14.4%, respectively). These findings demonstrate that field-based GPS data provide accurate FoVE profiles, turning the steps of human participants into a promising step forward for assessing locomotion capacities in wild mountain-dwelling animals. This framework was then applied exploratorily to Capra ibex, comparing their uphill capacities with human profiles. This illustrates how integrating force and endurance dimensions, often overlooked in animals, opens new possibilities in ecophysiology and evolution.

SEB’s Annual Conference is celebrated for creating the perfect composition of research, new discoveries, and collaborative connections. Be creative and innovative by exchanging ideas and knowledge with masters of biology from all over the world.

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Predation is one of the most pervasive selective pressures affecting predator and prey individual fitness. Minor differences in speed, maximal exertion or endurance during predator-prey encounters may mean success or failure, with potentially fatal consequences. Knowing physical capacities may, for instance, permit a biologist to predict the outcome of an encounter such as that between predator and prey. Yet beyond speed and manoeuvrability, the measurement of such capacities in the wild has remained conspicuously neglected. We retrieved continuous accelerometer data from large herbivore and carnivore species and modelled individual physical abilities of animals in the wild, based on models derived from exercise physiology. We then reconstructed the continuous physiological fatigue state of prey and predators during predation events. This allowed us to relate predator foraging tactics (ambush or cursorial) and prey anti-predator behaviour (e.g. freeze or flight) to different exhaustion levels at successful capture events. We expected prey to reach higher levels of exhaustion than their predators because of thelife-dinner principle, and predators to show different fatigue kinetics depending on foraging tactic. In some prey, escape led to depletion exceeding 90% of anaerobic reserve, precipitating a catastrophic loss of locomotor performance and rendering further escape impossible. Our approach also allows identifying "near-miss" events characterised by high, yet non-maximal, fatigue accumulation, shedding light on ecological situations seldom observablein nature. In translating human exercise science models to free-ranging wildlife, our findings provide original empirical insights into key energetic processes shaping behaviour, predator-prey interactions, and individual variation in fitness.

Fatigue shapes the outcome of predator-prey interactions in the wild

The impacts of global climate change permeate the majority of contemporary studies of animal and plant ecology and environmental physiology, where particular concerns about effects on biodiversity and biogeography are common. Yet severe conceptual gaps exist across these scales of inquiry when the physiological tolerance of a species becomes defined by mean trait values across its entire range, populations are treated as homogeneous entities, and environmental heterogeneity is collapsed into latitudinal gradients and annual means. These heuristics are common despite abundant evidence that intra- and inter-specific variation in physiological tolerance is pervasive, that heterogeneity in environmental stressors can vary as much over the scale of a meter as it can thousands of km, and that often less than half of range boundaries are moving in the expected poleward direction. We explore the cognitive dissonance that exists across physiological to biogeographic scales of scientific approach, and argue that it can be explained by several well-known principles of cognitive science: the tendency of humans to simplify complexity into simple cognitive construals; the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” when these simplified heuristics are conflated with reality; and the social framework of modern science that further rewards and reifies these simplifications. Using work from our own groups and others, we explore how cross-scalar approaches that span molecular biology, physiology and ecology and which consider true variation in nature can provide a means of challenging these unconscious biases and provide a pathway forward to better understand the likely impacts of ongoing environmental change.

The cognitive science of climate ecology: “The map is not the territory.”

Insect geographical limits are tied to their ability to tolerate thermal extremes. Climate change is increasing both mean global temperatures and extreme weather event occurrences, which has implications for shifting habitats. This is not only making climates unsuitable for native species but also opening habitats for new species to invade. Mountain Pine Beetles (Dendroctonus Ponderosae; MPB) are a species of bark beetle that have expanded past their native range in the westernmost part of north America, severely impacting the forests of British Colombia and Alberta, and continuing to expand eastward. As a freeze-avoidant insect, MPB have the capacity to lower their internal freezing temperature and survive extreme cold through cryoprotectant accumulation and maintenance of ion balance, but whether they have an active transcriptional response to a cold snap, and if these changes carry over into translated proteins is unknown. We performed whole animal RNA-seq on MPB that had previously undergone a polar vortex event. Overwintering beetle larvae were cooled to temperatures ranging from 5°C to -15°C. Proteomics were completed using the same samples from which RNA seq results were obtained. We identified a clear temperature trigger for a transcriptional response to cold at -15°C, where transcription is upregulated in genes related to ion balance and membrane development. These same genes also appear as proteins present in our proteomics data, meaning there is a further response to cold at the translational level. Overall, our results show that mountain pine beetles respond actively to very low temperatures.

What's cooler than being cool? Thermal sensitivity of transcriptional and translational response to chilling in the overwintering mountain pine beetle.

Understanding how insects achieve robust sensorimotor control requires linking aeroelastic forces, wing deformation, and the mechanosensory structures found on the wings. While dipteran halteres have been studied more extensively, the wings remain comparatively understudied despite being similarly sensorised and subject to both inertial and aerodynamic loads. Here, we present preliminary steps toward a general model of wing mechanosensing across Diptera.
We used micro??'CT imaging of blowfly (Calliphora) wings to reconstruct detailed three??'dimensional geometries, from which we built high??'fidelity finite element models suitable for fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulations. Species??'specific flapping kinematics were extracted from high??'speed video recordings and applied at the wing base, allowing the compliant wing to deform freely under aerodynamic and inertial loads. The resulting strain and pressure fields across the wing surface reveal how mechanical cues develop throughout the wingbeat cycle. We assess these fields in the context of the distribution of cuticular strain-sensing campaniform sensilla.
We demonstrate a pipeline that links wing architecture, aeroelastic deformation, and sensor placement, enabling investigation of co??'evolved morphology and mechanosensory design relevant to biological flight control and bio??'inspired robotics.

Wing deformation in blowfly flight: a numerical analysis

Lactate was long regarded as a metabolic by-product of glycolysis. It is now recognized as a multifunctional metabolite that serves as a mitochondrial energy substrate, a gluconeogenic precursor, and a signaling molecule. However, how lactate functions within red blood cells (RBCs) remains poorly understood. We examine lactate handling and redox function in blood, using haemoglobin (Hb) redox states as functional readouts, by comparing mammalian (rat,Rattus norvegicus) and avian (chicken,Gallus gallus domesticus) RBCs, which respectively lack or retain mitochondria. Using GC–MS analysis, we observed a decrease in RBC lactate levels in chicken blood under two different oxidant challenges that oxidise haemoglobin (Hb) to metHb. While lactate addition reduced metHb back to functional Hb in RBCs from both species, this effect was 3.0-fold (PHAPP) and 3.8-fold (NaNO₂) faster in chickens. These changes were accompanied by alterations in apparent respiratory rate and initial oxygen flux (V₀). Our study redefines lactate as a functional redox fuel in RBCs containing mitochondria.

The Effect of Lactate on Methemoglobin Formation Under Oxidative Stress

Flight is central to beetle foraging, dispersal and mate search, yet for ectotherms the temperature restricts when and where they can fly. We introduce a new flight model in the R package NicheMapR that predicts body-temperature dynamics during flight by combining metabolic heat production, convective heat transfer, radiative exchange (including emissivity), and microclimate conditions. We parameterised the model for two Australian jewel beetles that occupy contrasting thermal environments: a small species in cool climate and a large species in hot climate. Species-specific thermal limits were then used to translate predicted body temperatures into conditions under which flight should be safe or unsafe. We validated these predictions with field measurements of operative and body temperatures and the associated flight activity of beetles in nature. We found opposing constraints on flight. In hotter habitats, large beetles quickly overheat because high ambient temperatures interact with high metabolic heat production during flight. In cooler habitats, small beetles lose heat too rapidly to sustain flight because both metabolic heat production and air temperatures are low. These size-dependent limits predict when flight becomes unsafe or unsustainable and explain observed activity patterns in the field. By linking physiology, behaviour and microclimate, our framework provides a mechanistic basis for forecasting how thermal landscapes shape ectotherm flight, with implications for dispersal, foraging and mate search under current and future climates.

Too Hot to Fly, Too Cold to Buzz: Thermal constraints on Jewel Beetle Flight

Across the genome, genes differ markedly in how their disruption influences cellular function. Disrupting some genes has strong effects, while others appear buffered under standard conditions. Strikingly, even “mild” perturbations can become detrimental when combined, revealing hidden functional dependencies. These genetic pairings expose buffering relationships that organise metabolism and growth. While systematic synthetic interaction mapping has transformed functional genomics in yeast, comparable approaches remain largely unexplored in unicellular photosynthetic model systems.
This study establishes a proof-of-principle synthetic genetic interaction framework in unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to uncover functional links between nutrient metabolism and TOR-dependent growth control. To enable controlled interrogation of this regulatory axis, we generated an inducible S6K1 knockdown strain, allowing conditional perturbation of a central growth regulator. This query strain is combined with selected metabolic mutants though classical sexual crossing, enabling systematic detection of synthetic sickness and lethality in double mutant progeny.
By moving beyond single-gene analyses and examining genetic combinations under defined environmental conditions, this work aims to reveal how metabolic pathways buffer one another and coordinate cell growth. Ongoing interaction screens are establishing a methodological foundation for synthetic interaction analysis in microalgae and expanding systems-level genetics into a photosynthetic model organism.

Finding Trouble in Pairs: A Synthetic Genetic Interaction Framework in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Plant growth–promoting bacteria enhance plant performance under nutrient-limited conditions, yet how different modes of plant–microbe interaction shape nutrient-specific host responses remains poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear how direct bacterial contact and volatile-mediated interactions originating from the same bacterial community differentially regulate plant nutrient acquisition pathways.
Here, we investigated how a 16-member synthetic bacterial community (16 SC) affects plant growth, nutrient status, signaling, and metabolite profiles under full nutrient supply as well as nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), and phosphorus (P) limitation in Arabidopsis thaliana.
We show that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by the 16 SC promote shoot growth under nitrate limitation and full nutrient conditions, whereas this growth promotion is lost under sulfur- and phosphorus-limiting conditions. In contrast, direct interaction between plants and the 16 SC abolishes growth promotion under all three nutrient-limiting conditions. These nutrient-dependent phenotypes correlate with distinct regulation of nutrient transporters and key transcriptional regulators involved in N (NRT1;1/NLP7), S (SULTR1;2/SLIM1), and P (PHT1/PHR1) signaling pathways.
Genetic analyses using nutrient transporter mutants revealed that VOC-induced growth promotion requires functional NRT1;1 and SULTR1;2 transporters, whereas growth promotion mediated by direct bacterial contact is retained in the corresponding mutants. This uncoupling of VOC- and contact-dependent effects indicates that distinct host regulatory pathways underlie microbial growth promotion depending on the interaction mode.
Together, our findings demonstrate that bacterial community–mediated plant growth promotion is strongly shaped by nutrient context and interaction mode, and that volatile-mediated and contact-dependent mechanisms engage separable host nutrient regulatory networks.

Nutrient Availability and Core Nutrient Pathway Genes Modulate Beneficial Effects of Bacterial Community Volatiles and Contact-Dependent Interactions Differently

Carnivorous plants represent an evolutionary adaptation to nutrient-poor environments, where limited resources availability constrain plant growth. Through specialised trapping structures and digestive mechanisms, these plants capture and assimilate nutrients from arthropods. In addition to these morphological traits, chemical signalling mediated by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) is increasingly recognised as an important component of plant–insect interactions in carnivorous species. VOCs may function as long-range attractants, whereas SVOCs can accumulate on trap surfaces and potentially influence short-range interactions with visiting organisms. Environmental conditions, including precipitation and humidity, are known to influence VOC emissions, yet the relationship between variation in chemical emissions and prey capture efficiency remains poorly understood.
Here we investigated this relationship in the widespread carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia L., a species typical of acidic peatlands across the Holarctic region and characterised by adhesive traps formed by glandular leaf tentacles. We combined measurements of prey capture with the characterisation of VOC and SVOC emissions in natural populations occurring under contrasting climatic conditions in north-western Spain. While prey capture rates were comparable between sites, plants from the drier region exhibited higher total VOC emissions. In contrast, SVOC emissions showed limited variation among sites, and multivariate analyses revealed no significant differences in chemical composition.
These results suggest that emission intensity may respond plastically to environmental conditions, whereas the qualitative structure of the chemical profile remains conserved. This balance between plasticity and compositional stability may contribute to maintaining effective foraging performance in D. rotundifolia across environmentally heterogeneous habitats.

The hidden language of carnivory: BVOC emissions in Drosera rotundifolia L. across contrasting precipitation regime

Brassica juncea (Indian mustard) is a metal-accumulator plant used to remediate contaminated soils through phytoremediation. A promising strategy to enhance its efficiency is the exploitation of bacteria that release volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or the direct application of selected VOCs to prime plants for stress tolerance and growth. However, the mechanisms underlying VOC-mediated plant–bacteria interactions are still poorly understood.
This study investigates the interaction between Indian mustard and selected strains of plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPBs) to identify VOCs that may promote plant growth under both non-stress and metal-stressed conditions.
A rectangular steel pot was filled with autoclaved sand. B. juncea seeds were sown at one end, while a consortium of selected PGPBs was inoculated in the centre, 10 cm from the seeds. VOCs were collected over time using perforated Teflon tubes connected to a vial containing an SPME fibre and subsequently identified by GC–MS analysis. At the end of the experiment, VOCs were also detected in B. juncea roots. In parallel, bacterial strains were identified in seeds and roots to assess the establishment of symbiotic relationships.
Identified VOCs were classified into two groups: compounds involved in plant–microorganism interactions and compounds associated with plant development. Among the latter, 3-octanone, dimethyl disulfide, and tetradecanal were selected as VOCs potentially released by Bacillus and Microbacterium strains detected as root endophytes. Preliminary tests showed that these compounds modified seedling root system architecture and generally promoted their root growth. Further experiments will evaluate their effects on Indian mustard plants under Cd stress.

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