{"id":2892,"date":"2014-08-27T13:04:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T18:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2892"},"modified":"2014-08-30T18:16:40","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T23:16:40","slug":"a-fish-out-of-water-can-get-used-to-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/a-fish-out-of-water-can-get-used-to-it\/","title":{"rendered":"A fish out of water . . . can get used to it<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2893\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64ba521e0c253a804e.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2893\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2893\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64ba521e0c253a804e-300x149.png\" alt=\"Bichir (Polypterus senegalus) live in freshwater lakes and rivers in East Africa, but can walk across land to reach new habitat. A new study shows just how much the fish can change if forced to live a terrestrial life. (Photo Credit: Antoine Morin)\" width=\"300\" height=\"149\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64ba521e0c253a804e-300x149.png 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/pngbase64ba521e0c253a804e.png 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2893\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bichir (Polypterus senegalus) live in freshwater lakes and rivers in East Africa, but can walk across land to reach new habitat. A new study shows just how much the fish can change if forced to live a terrestrial life. (Photo Credit: Antoine Morin)<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A new study shows just how much a fish can change when raised in a land environment, and sheds light on the role such changes could have played in the evolution of land animals. <\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Bichir (<\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; color: #000000;\">Polypterus senegalus<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">) have both gills and lungs and, although they prefer water, can walk across land to reach new habitat if their old one dries up. Researchers set up an experiment where bichir lived for 8 months on land and saw that they <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">walked with a more effective gait; they also had changes in their pectoral fin anatomy that resemble some key evolutionary changes that are seen in the fossil record. <\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This plasticity &#8211; the ability of an organism to change its behaviour, shape or physiology in response to its environment &#8211; may also have been present in ancient fishes and could have facilitated their successful transition onto land.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nature13708\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em>Nature<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>on\u00a0<strong>August 27, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Emily Standen, University of Ottawa, Ontario<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new study shows just how much a fish can change when raised in a land environment, and sheds light on the role such changes could have played in the evolution of land animals. Bichir (Polypterus senegalus) have both gills and lungs and, although they prefer water, can walk across land to reach new habitat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[39,170,113,917,1778,50],"class_list":["post-2892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-animal-behaviour","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-evolution","tag-fish","tag-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-KE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2892"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2915,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892\/revisions\/2915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}