EurekAlert! News by Subject: Biology - News by Subject: Biology

Biology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 30-Jul-2025 01:11 ET (30-Jul-2025 05:11 GMT/UTC)

Shorter and warmer winters may expand the hibernation area of bats in Europe

Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The ambient temperature has a profound impact on the physiology and behaviour of most species. In regions where individuals rely on low temperatures to hibernate effectively, global warming is likely to significantly affect their survival. A team of scientists studied how ambient temperatures shape the energy expenditure of common noctule bats and built a model to predict at which latitudes they could survive hibernation. This model also predicts how the hibernation areas of these bats could change over time. It accurately tracks the northward range shift of this species over the past 50 years and shows a further northeast expansion of up to 14 percent of its current range by 2100 – driven by shorter and warmer winters in Europe.

Journal: Ecology Letters

Meow mix-up: New study reveals Israeli attitudes on stray cats

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new nationwide study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem uncovers the Israeli public’s conflicting attitudes toward free-roaming cats. While nearly a third of respondents regularly feed stray cats, a large majority still support reducing their numbers. This contradiction highlights the complexity of public attitudes, where emotional actions coexist with ecological concerns. Researchers emphasize the need for public education and propose involving cat feeders in monitoring and control efforts to improve policy effectiveness.

Journal: Preventive Veterinary Medicine
Funder: Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Israel

Research links trilobite body size changes in early Paleozoic with marine oxygen levels

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A recent study shows that marine oxygen levels were crucial to the evolution of Early Paleozoic trilobite body size, suggesting that oxygen may have influenced the evolution of other animals' body size as well.

Journal: Science Advances

Temperature-controlled switch activates sperm, is key to fertility

WashU Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

WashU Medicine researcher Polina Lishko, PhD, a BJC Investigator and professor of cell biology and physiology, has shown in mice that sperm have a temperature-controlled switch that changes their movements and is key to male fertility. The discovery sheds light on why mammals, including humans, have evolved to keep male reproductive organs cooler than their core body temperature.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: BJC Investigator Fund

Pennington Biomedical highlights how cellular quality control contribute to insulin resistance related to type 2 diabetes

Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center have revealed critical insights into how impaired mitochondrial dynamics and quality control mechanisms in skeletal muscle influence insulin sensitivity in patients with Type 2 Diabetes, or T2D. The study, titled "Deubiquitinating Enzymes Regulate Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Quality Control and Insulin Sensitivity in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes," was recently published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.

The research team, led by Pennington Biomedical Executive Director Dr. John Kirwan, focused on the significance of deubiquitinating enzymes, or DUBs, in regulating mitochondrial dynamics within skeletal muscle. Findings suggest that mitochondrial fragmentation can bypass defects in mitophagy, the process by which cells remove damaged mitochondria, to sustain skeletal muscle quality control in patients with T2D. This adaptation may help maintain mitochondrial function despite impaired mitophagy.

Journal: Journal of Cachexia Sarcopenia and Muscle
Funder: NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Evolutionary rescue: The solution for microbial communities to survive environmental stress is self-sufficiency

University of Malaga
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Ignacio J. Melero-Jiménez, a researcher at the Department of Botany and Plant Physiology of the University of Malaga, has collaborated with an international scientific team that has shown, based on an experimental system that reproduces a mutualistic microbial community, that the most common evolutionary solution for two co-dependent organisms to survive extreme environmental change could be to become self-sufficient.

Journal: Nature Communications

More female athletes believe DSD eligibility for female category is fair than unfair

Swansea University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

More female athletes believe it is fair (43%), rather than unfair (36%) for athletes with a DSD – difference in sex development - to be included in the female category for contact sports like rugby and non-contact sports reliant on physical capacity like sprinting, a new study shows.

The study also found that a majority of athletes believe it is unethical to require athletes with a difference in sex development to medicate for eligibility.

The researchers say that athletics governing bodies should use this new data on athletes’ views to update their eligibility policies.

DSD stands for difference in sex development. People with a DSD do not always develop along typical male-female lines. Their hormones, genes, reproductive organs may be a mix of male and female characteristics. The most high-profile athlete with a DSD is South African runner Caster Semenya.

Journal: European Journal of Sport Science