Study
Hypoxia tolerance in reptiles, amphibians, and fishes: life with variable oxygen availability
Bickler, Philip E.; Buck, Leslie T.
Annual Review of Physiology, 2007
Reviews how ectothermic vertebrates survive prolonged low or absent oxygen, focusing on metabolic suppression, ion channel regulation in the brain, and the handling of acid produced by anaerobic metabolism.
- Studied in
- Reptilia, Amphibia, Actinopterygii
- Sample size
- review across ectothermic vertebrates
Anoxia-tolerant vertebrates suppress metabolism dramatically, reduce the electrical activity of the brain in a controlled way rather than losing it, and manage the resulting acid — in turtles by dissolving buffer from their own shells.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Anoxia tolerance is an integrated programme combining demand reduction with specific protection of the brain, not simply a greater store of anaerobic fuel.
How NatureHQ reads it
The record behind the point that surviving without oxygen is chiefly about needing less of it. The turtle detail — buffering blood acid with its own skeleton — is the kind of mechanism that sounds invented and is measured.
- Concentrated on a few champion species, principally painted turtles and crucian carp.
- How the brain is protected is described in outline; the molecular detail was incomplete at the time of writing.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Hypoxia tolerance
Animals that survive months without oxygen do not carry a bigger store of it. They cut demand almost to nothing, protect the brain deliberately, and deal with the acid their anaerobic metabolism makes.
Hypoxia tolerance
The months-without-oxygen records belong to cold animals. The same turtle or carp at summer temperatures survives a small fraction of that — the cold is part of the mechanism, not the setting.
Published by: Annual ReviewsPublished in an Annual Reviews journal.
doi.org/10.1146/annurev.physiol.69.031905.162529
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.