MAY 1,
2019
Why do
birds typically live longer than mammals? A new paper offers a hint, albeit not
a conclusive answer. Assistant Professors of Biology Cynthia Downs and Ana
Jimenez at Hamilton College and Colgate University respectively have
co-authored a paper with nine students, "Does cellular metabolism from
primary fibroblasts and oxidative stress in blood differ between mammals and
birds? The (lack-thereof) scaling of oxidative stress" in press
with Integrative and Comparative Biology.
The
research group focused on testing whether birds and mammals have differential
patterns in cellular
metabolism as expected because of their difference in whole-animal
rates of energy use. They also tested whether birds had higher antioxidant
concentrations to ameliorate the higher concentrations of reactive oxygen
species. One of their goals was to determine if birds and mammals differ in the
amount of damage caused by the balance of reactive oxygen species and
antioxidants concentrations (oxidative stress).
Because whole-organism rates of energy use also changes in a predictable manner,
another goal was to determine if components of oxidative stress changed with body size.
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