This book summarises the newest information on seasonal adaptation in animals. Topics include animal hibernation, daily torpor, thermoregulation, heat production, metabolic depression, biochemical adaptations, neurophysiology and energy balance. The contributors to this book present interdisciplinary research at multiple levels ranging from the molecular to the ecophysiological, as well as evolutionary approaches. The chapters of this book provide original data not published elsewhere, which makes it the most up-to-date, comprehensive source of information on these fields.

The book's subchapters correspond to presentations given at the 14th International Hibernation Symposium in August 2012 in Austria. This is a very successful series of symposia (held every four years since 1959) that attracts leading researchers in the field. Like the past symposia, this meeting - and consequently the book - is aimed not only at hibernation but at covering the full range of animal adaptations to seasonal environments. For the next four years, this book will serve as the cutting-edge reference work for graduate students and scientists active in this field of physiology and ecology.

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A single origin of heterothermy in mammals. - Afrotropical heterothermy: a continuum of possibilities. -Tropical heterothermy - does the exception prove the rule or force a re-definition? Hibernation in free-ranging African woodland dormice, Graphiurus murinus

Evolutionary ecology of mammalian hibernation phenology
Inter-relationships among timing of hibernation, reproduction, and warming soil in free-living female arctic ground squirrel
Assessing the effect of climate change on hibernating mammals using computer intensive methods
Impact of climatic variation on the hibernation physiology of Muscardinus avellanarius
Comparison of variables of torpor between populations of a hibernating subtropical/tropical bat at different latitudes
The Other Functions of Torpor
Survival, aging, and life-history tactics in mammalian hibernators
Does Age matter? Effects of age on hibernation patterns in edible dormice (Glis glis)
Sex and seasonality: reproduction in the echidna (Tachylossus aculeatus)
Sex differences in foraging behavior, body fat, and hibernation patterns of free-ranging Common hamsters
Summer sexual segregation and true winter hibernation by a subtropical bat
Heterothermy in caprimulgid birds: a review of inter- and intraspecific variation in free ranging populations
The brain at low temperature: tau hyperphosphorylation dynamics in hibernation and torpor
The hibernation-related peptide TSKY acts as a neuroprotector in cultured pond snail neurons
The torpor-arousal cycle is controlled by an endogenous clock
Ultradian episodes of thermogenesis in mammals - implications for the timing of torpor entry and arousal
Spontaneous daily torpor versus starvation-induced hypothermia: two sides of a medal or distinct phenomena?

Does the road traveled matter?Natural versus prematurely induced arousal from torpor
The hibernating immune system
The Relationship between White Nose Syndrome and Dietary PUFA levels in Bats
Impact of Hibernation on Gut Microbiota and Intestinal Barrier Function in Ground Squirrels
Cardiac electrical alternans and ventricular fibrillation during hypothermia in non-hibernating versus hibernating animals: role of propagation velocity and dispersion of depolarization
Neonatal Deep Hypothermia: Heart Function and Metabolism
Seasonal Changes in Thermoregulatory Strategies of Tegu Lizards
Phylogenetic background of hibernation and hibernation-specific proteins (HP) in Sciuridae
Adenosine, AMP, and Daily Torpor
On the dissimilarity of 5'-AMP induced hypothermia and torpor in mice
Potential mechanisms of metabolic suppression downstream of central A1AR activation during onset of torpor
Fast In, Slow Out: Patterns and Mechanisms of Mitochondrial Metabolic Suppression in Mammalian Hibernation
Adjustments of mitochondrial energy transduction in response to physiological and environmental challenge

Redox Metabolism during Tropical Diapause in a Lepidoptera Larva
Biochemical regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in hibernating bats
Theme and variation: proteomic changes across three organs in hibernation cycles of the 13 lined ground squirrel
Putting the brakes on protein synthesis in mammalian hibernation
Brown adipose tissue - a seasonal tissue in mammals, including humans? Systematic screening for mutant mouse lines with defects in body temperature regulation
Diurnal changes in metabolic rate in pygmy marmosets: Implications for sleep, torpor, and basal metabolism in primates
Torpor use and body mass gain during pre-hibernation in late-born juvenile garden dormice exposed to food shortage
Seasonal variations in energy turnover and body temperature in free-living edibledormice, Glis glis
The effect of ambient temperature on body mass, torpor, food intake, and leptin levels: implications on the regulation of food intake in mammalian hibernator
Monthly sex differences in circulating hormones in free-living Callospermophilus lateralis (Golden-mantled ground squirrels)
Pufas, Prostaglandine, seasonality
Genes Expression of Orexigenic and Anorexigenic Neuropeptides during the Fattening and Hibernation Period in Daurian Ground Squirrel (Urocitellus dauricus).