Bernie Wone

University of South Dakota | USD · Department of Biology

Addiction behavior and the resulting short-term or long-term disabilities continue to increase globally, especially during the current COVID pandemic. We analyze how national measures of 38 global indices correlate with national addiction-related disability rates resulting from four primary addictive substances: alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and food. W...

Seasonal changes, such as alterations in food availability or type and cold conditions, present challenges to free-living birds living in highly seasonal climates. Small birds respond to such challenges through seasonal metabolic flexibility, which better matches seasonal metabolic phenotypes to environmental conditions and can improve fitness. To...

Abiotic stresses have the greatest impact on the growth and productivity of crops, especially under current and future extreme weather events due to climate change. Thus, it is vital to explore novel strategies to improve crop plant abiotic stress tolerance to feed an ever-growing world population. Selaginella lepidophylla is a desiccation-tolerant...

Cactus pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) is a high productivity species within the Cactaceae grown in many semiarid parts of the world for food, fodder, forage, and biofuels. O. ficus-indica utilises obligate crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), an adaptation that greatly improves water-use efficiency (WUE) and reduces crop water usage. To better understa...

Plant genetic engineering will be essential to decipher the genomic basis of complex traits, optimize crop genomics, and enable plant-based production of recombinant proteins. However, established plant transformation approaches for bioengineering are fraught with limitations. Although nanoparticle-mediated methods show great promise for advancing...

Muscle aging is a complex dynamic process that adversely affects whole‐animal metabolism and physiology. The molecular regulation of aging muscle that impacts muscle function, performance, and metabolism remains largely unknown because such studies in model organisms are prohibitively time‐ and resource‐intensive. The hawk moth, Manduca sexta , off...

Global crop production is expected to decrease because of increasing abiotic stressors including extremes in temperature, water, light intensity, nutrients, and radiation due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. Increased abiotic stressors will alter the metabolism in C 3 plants and thus negatively affect their growth and productivity. D...

Metabolic rates potentially regulate the pace of important physiological and life-history traits. Natural selection has shaped the evolution of metabolic rates and the physiology that supports them, including digestibility and the rate of food consumption. Understanding the relationship between metabolic rates and energy internalization is central...

This perspective paper explores the utilization of abiotic stress-responsive transcription factors (TFs) from crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants to improve abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. CAM is a specialized type of photosynthetic adaptation that enhances water-use efficiency (WUE) by shifting CO2 uptake to all or part of the night...

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants are considered well adapted to water-limited environments because CAM enhances water-use efficiency (WUE) compared to C 3 photosynthetic plants. Still, the underlying regulatory basis of CAM is essentially unknown. We have identified several candidate transcription factors (TFs) as potential key regulators...

Flight muscle breakdown has been reported for many orders of insects, but the basis of this breakdown in insects with lifelong dependence on flight is less clear. Lepidopterans show such muscle changes across their lifespans, yet how this change affects the ability of these insects to complete their life cycles is not well documented. We investigat...

Mitochondrial haplotypes have been associated with human and rodent phenotypes, including nonshivering thermogenesis capacity, learning capability, and disease risk. Although the mammalian mitochondrial D-loop is highly polymorphic, D-loops in laboratory mice are identical, and variation occurs elsewhere mainly between nucleotides 9820 and 9830. Pa...

Biological aging profoundly impairs muscle function, performance, and metabolism. Because the progression of metabolic alterations associated with aging muscle has not been chronicled, we tracked the metabolic profiles of flight muscle from middle to advanced age in Manduca sexta to identify key molecules during the progression of muscle aging, as...

Vegetative desiccation tolerance, lost in most angiosperms during evolution, is an important trait in many bryophytes, and allows some plants to survive the loss of almost all cellular water and resume growth upon rehydration. Among the mosses, some are fully desiccation tolerant (DT) with constitutive mechanisms that allow them to survive drying,...

This study explores the possible socio-cultural factors affecting addictive behaviors leading to disability in work-aged populations. A sparse generalized canonical correlation analysis was used to model and correlate socio-cultural factors with high addictive behaviors (drug, tobacco, alcohol, and food over-consumption) in 15 to 49 year olds that...

This study explores statistically the possible socio-cultural factors impacting addictive behaviors leading to disability in work-aged populations. A sparse canonical correlation analysis was employed to explore factors that may impact work place by being correlated with high addictive behaviors related to drug, tobacco, alcohol, and food over-cons...

Background Understanding the response of resurrection angiosperms to dehydration and rehydration is critical for deciphering the mechanisms of how plants cope with the rigors of water loss from their vegetative tissues. We have focused our studies on the C4 resurrection grass, Sporobolus stapfianus Gandoger, as a member of a group of important fora...

Investigations into relationships between life-history traits, such as growth rate and energy metabolism, typically focus on basal metabolic rate (BMR). In contrast, investigators rarely examine maximal metabolic rate (MMR) as a relevant metric of energy metabolism, even though it indicates the maximal capacity to metabolize energy aerobically, and...

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a specialized mode of photosynthesis that features nocturnal CO2 uptake, facilitates increased water-use efficiency (WUE), and enables CAM plants to inhabit water-limited environments such as semi-arid deserts or seasonally dry forests. Human population growth and global climate change now present challenges fo...

Metabolic rates are correlated with many aspects of ecology, but how selection on different aspects of metabolic rates affects their mutual evolution is poorly understood. Using laboratory mice, we artificially selected for high maximal mass-independent metabolic rate (MMR) without direct selection on mass-independent basal metabolic rate (BMR). Th...

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is an elaboration of C3 photosynthesis wherein carbon assimilation occurs at night to reduce daytime water losses through a temporal separation of primary C4 and secondary C3 carboxylation reactions. The circadian clock controls the temporal separation of these potentially competing reactions. However, the underly...

Flight and reproduction are two energetically demanding life‐history traits, but empirical data for the existence of a trade‐off between them is equivocal. Trade‐offs are partly determined by the amount of resources available: trade‐offs are more pronounced when resources are scarce and can be undetectable when resources are abundant. Using Manduca...

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a water-use efficient photosynthetic adaptation found in more than 6% of vascular plant species. This adaptation is distinguished by the temporal separation of primary C4 and secondary C3 carboxylation reactions to reduce daytime water loss. To investigate the underlying orchestration of transcriptional network...

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is an elaboration of C3 photosynthetic that limits atmospheric CO2 fixation to all or part of the nighttime thereby reducing transpiration during the day and improving water-use efficiency. The common or crystalline ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L.) is a facultative CAM and halophytic model species that...

Improved crop water-use efficiency (WUE) is critical for the long-term sustainability of agricultural production systems in the face of predicted future warmer and drier climates. Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a specialized mode of photosynthesis that enhances WUE through an inverse day/night pattern of stomatal closure/opening and improves...

Wildfire has been shown to increase the short-term (1-3 yr) mobilization of mineral N and P in forest ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Lake Tahoe Basin. The ensuing effects on tributary and lake water quality are uncertain. The purpose of this investigation was to assess the impacts on runoff water quality over an intermediate time fra...

Aerobic metabolism of vertebrates is linked to membrane fatty acid (FA) composition. Although the membrane pacemaker hypothesis posits that desaturation of FAs accounts for variation in resting or basal metabolic rate (BMR), little is known about the FA profiles that underpin variation in maximal metabolic rate (MMR). We examined membrane FA compos...

Both appropriate metabolic rates and sufficient immune function are essential for survival. Consequently, eco-immunologists have hypothesized that animals may experience trade-offs between metabolic rates and immune function. Previous work has focused on how basal metabolic rate (BMR) may trade-off with immune function, but maximal metabolic rate (...

Both appropriate metabolic rates and sufficient immune function are essential for survival. Consequently, eco-immunologists have hypothesized that animals may experience trade-offs between metabolic rates and immune function. Previous work has focused on how basal metabolic rate (BMR) may trade-off with immune function, but maximal metabolic rate (...

Selaginella lepidophylla is one of only a few species of spike mosses (Selaginellaceae) that have evolved desiccation tolerance (DT) or the ability to 'resurrect' from an air-dried state. In order to understand the metabolic basis of DT, S. lepidophylla was subjected to a five-stage, rehydration/dehydration cycle, then analyzed using non-biased, gl...

Spike mosses (Selaginellaceae) represent an ancient lineage of vascular plants in which some species have evolved desiccation tolerance (DT). A sister-group contrast to reveal the metabolic basis of DT was conducted between a desiccation-tolerant species, Selaginella lepidophylla, and a desiccation-sensitive species, Selaginella moellendorffii, at...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotypes have been associated with various human and rodent phenotypes, such as nonshivering thermogenesis capacity, learning capability, and disease risk. Although the mammalian mtDNA control region (D‐loop) is highly polymorphic, D‐loops in laboratory mice are apparently identical, and variation occurs elsewhere in the...

Maximal aerobic metabolic rate (MMR) is an important physiological and ecological variable that sets an upper limit to sustained, vigorous activity. How the oxygen cascade from the external environment to the mitochondria may affect MMR has been the subject of much interest, but little is known about the metabolic profiles that underpin variation i...

Understanding how plants tolerate dehydration is a prerequisite for developing novel strategies for improving drought tolerance. The desiccation-tolerant (DT) Sporobolus stapfianus and the desiccation-sensitive (DS) Sporobolus pyramidalis formed a sister group contrast to reveal adaptive metabolic responses to dehydration using untargeted global me...

Exercise and fasting both increase free fatty acids, and elevated unsaturated free fatty acids are up‐regulators of lipid metabolism in skeletal muscles. We examined fatty acids in skeletal muscles in lines of Mus musculus artificially selected for high maximal metabolic rate (high‐MMR). These mice were not exercised and standard laboratory rat cho...

Innate immune function is potentially energetically expensive. We tested the hypothesis, posited by life history theory, that trade‐offs exist among energetically expensive activities (e.g., innate immune function and metabolic rate). We assessed innate immune function by injecting mice with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and we measured basal metabolic...

The genetic variances and covariances of traits must be known to predict how they may respond to selection and how covariances among them might affect their evolutionary trajectories. We used the animal model to estimate the genetic variances and covariances of basal metabolic rate (BMR) and maximal metabolic rate (MMR) in a genetically heterogeneo...

Sixty-nine telemetered Phrynosoma mcallii from the Colorado Desert in California were relocated for up to nine months to examine activity patterns, home-range sizes and overlap, distance traveled between relocations, and onset and duration of hibernation. Total area used by the lizards ranged from 651–59,237 m2. Males had significantly larger mean...

The habitat of the flat-tailed horned lizard (Phrynosoma mcallii) is usually described as desert flats with fine, aeolian sand, at the edges of or away from dunes. At Ocotillo Wells State Vehicle Recreation Area the highest densities of P mcallii were correlated with sparsely vegetated gravelly habitats and mud hills. These findings suggest that ei...