ReviewComprehensive Physiology2013
Evolution of air breathing: oxygen homeostasis and the transitions from water to land and sky.
Review in Comprehensive Physiology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 345 citations in OpenAlex.
- Optimal oxygenation in the intensive care unit: what recent trials do-and do not-tell us.Acute and critical care · 2026Article
- Genetic parallelism underpins convergent mimicry coloration in Lepidoptera across 120 million years of evolution.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Evolutionary Integration and Glucocorticoid Regulation of the Respiratory System: Structure, Function, and Homeostatic Adaptation.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Human trachea and bronchi: Structural adaptations in respiratory health.Bioinformation · 2026Article
- Global characterization of Dictyostelium discoideum gene and protein expression changes under hypoxic conditions.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Gene Expression Analysis Provides Insights Into the Functional and Developmental Differentiations of Pleopodal Lungs in a Terrestrial Isopod Crustacean, Porcellio scaber.Evolution & development · 2025Article
- KMicrovascular research · 2025Article
- Origin and stepwise evolution of vertebrate lungs.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Avian air sacs and neopulmo: their evolution, form and function.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- The ecology and plasticity of fish skin and gill microbiomes: seeking what matters in health and disease.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- Endothelial ENaC as a repressor of oxidative stress and a guardian of lung capillary barrier function in bacterial and viral pneumonia.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Review
- Influence of Hypoxia on the Airway Epithelium.Physiological research · 2024Review
- Identifying signatures of the earliest benthic bulldozers in emergent subaerial conditions during the colonization of land by animals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Trace metals in the teleost fish gill: biological roles, uptake regulation, and detoxification mechanisms.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2024Review
- Article
- Single cell RNA analysis uncovers the cell differentiation and functionalization for air breathing of frog lung.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Oxygen is an essential gasotransmitter directly sensed via protein gasoreceptors.Animal models and experimental medicine · 2024Article
- Sox9 is associated with two distinct patterning events during snake lung morphogenesis.Developmental biology · 2024Article
- Oxygen extraction efficiency of the tidally-ventilated rectal gills of dragonfly nymphs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Relationship between Fat Status, Stage of Gonadal Maturity and Hormonal Variation ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Life originated in anoxia, but many organisms came to depend upon oxygen for survival, independently evolving diverse respiratory systems for acquiring oxygen from the environment. Ambient oxygen tension (PO2) fluctuated through the ages in correlation with biodiversity and body size, enabling organisms to migrate from water to land and air and sometimes in the opposite direction. Habitat expansion compels the use of different gas exchangers, for example, skin, gills, tracheae, lungs, and their intermediate stages, that may coexist within the same species; coexistence may be temporally disjunct (e.g., larval gills vs. adult lungs) or simultaneous (e.g., skin, gills, and lungs in some salamanders). Disparate systems exhibit similar directions of adaptation: toward larger diffusion interfaces, thinner barriers, finer dynamic regulation, and reduced cost of breathing. Efficient respiratory gas exchange, coupled to downstream convective and diffusive resistances, comprise the "oxygen cascade"-step-down of PO2 that balances supply against toxicity. Here, we review the origin of oxygen homeostasis, a primal selection factor for all respiratory systems, which in turn function as gatekeepers of the cascade. Within an organism's lifespan, the respiratory apparatus adapts in various ways to upregulate oxygen uptake in hypoxia and restrict uptake in hyperoxia. In an evolutionary context, certain species also become adapted to environmental conditions or habitual organismic demands. We, therefore, survey the comparative anatomy and physiology of respiratory systems from invertebrates to vertebrates, water to air breathers, and terrestrial to aerial inhabitants. Through the evolutionary directions and variety of gas exchangers, their shared features and individual compromises may be appreciated.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.