Marshall D. McCue

Bio: Marshall D. McCue is an academic researcher from St. Mary's University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Starvation & Lipid oxidation. The author has an hindex of 27, co-authored 63 publications receiving 2630 citations. Previous affiliations of Marshall D. McCue include University of Florida & University of Arkansas.

Starvation physiology: reviewing the different strategies animals use to survive a common challenge.

Abstract: All animals face the possibility of limitations in food resources that could ultimately lead to starvation-induced mortality. The primary goal of this review is to characterize the various physiological strategies that allow different animals to survive starvation. The ancillary goals of this work are to identify areas in which investigations of starvation can be improved and to discuss recent advances and emerging directions in starvation research. The ubiquity of food limitation among animals, inconsistent terminology associated with starvation and fasting, and rationale for scientific investigations into starvation are discussed. Similarities and differences with regard to carbohydrate, lipid, and protein metabolism during starvation are also examined in a comparative context. Examples from the literature are used to underscore areas in which reporting and statistical practices, particularly those involved with starvation-induced changes in body composition and starvation-induced hypometabolism can be improved. The review concludes by highlighting several recent advances and promising research directions in starvation physiology. Because the hundreds of studies reviewed here vary so widely in their experimental designs and treatments, formal comparisons of starvation responses among studies and taxa are generally precluded; nevertheless, it is my aim to provide a starting point from which we may develop novel approaches, tools, and hypotheses to facilitate meaningful investigations into the physiology of starvation in animals.

Specific dynamic action: a century of investigation.

Abstract: Specific dynamic action (SDA) is the term used to refer to the increased metabolic expenditure that occurs in postprandial animals. Postprandial increases in metabolism were first documented in animals over two hundred years ago, and have since been observed in every species thus far examined. Ironically, the ubiquity of this physiological response to feeding understates its complex nature. This review is designed to summarize both classical and modern hypotheses regarding the causality of SDA as well as to review important findings from the past century of scientific research into SDA. A secondary aim of this work is to emphasize the importance of carefully designed experiments and systematic hypothesis testing to make more rapid progress in understanding the physiological processes that contribute to SDA. I also identify three areas in SDA research that deserve more detailed investigation. The first area is identification of the causality of SDA in ‘model’ organisms. The second area is characterization of SDA responses in novel species. The third area is exploration of the ecological and potential evolutionary significance of SDA in energy budgets of animals.

Comparative physiology of fasting, starvation, and food limitation

Abstract: Marshall D. McCue: An introduction.- Jean-Herve Lignot, Yvon LeMaho: A history of modern research into fasting, starvation, and inanition.- Kevin L. Kirk: Starvation in rotifers: physiology in an ecological context.- Allen G. Gibbs, Lauren A. Reynolds: Drosophila as a model for starvation.- Johannes Overgaard, Tobias Wang: Metabolic transitions during feast and famine in spiders.- Nadav Bar, Helene Volkoff: Adaption of the physiological, endocrine and the digestive system functions to prolonged food deprivation in fish.- Frederic Hervant: Starvation in subterranean species versus surface-dwelling species: crustaceans, fish, and salamanders.- Marshall D. McCue, Harvey B. Lillywhite, Steven J. Beaupre: Physiological responses to starvation in snakes.- Rike Campen, Matthias Starck: Cardiovascular circuits and digestive function of intermittent-feeding sauropsids.- Esa Hohtola: Thermoregulatory adaptations to starvation in birds.- Susanne Jenni-Eiermann and Lukas Jenni: Fasting in birds: general patterns and the special case of endurance flight.- Ulf Bauchinger, Scott R. McWilliams: Tissue-specific mass changes during fasting: the protein turnover hypothesis.- Xueying Zhang et al: Seasonal changes in body mass and energy balance in wild small mammals.- Jehan-Herve Lignot: Changes in form and function of the gastrointestinal tract during starvation: from pythons to rats.- Edwin R. Price, Teresa G. Valencak: Changes in fatty acid composition during starvation in vertebrates.- Miriam Ben-Hamo et al.: Physiological Responses to Fasting in Bats.- Hank Harlow: Muscle protein and strength retention by bears during winter fasting and starvation.- Duane E. Ullrey: Seasonal starvation in northern white-tailed deer.- Cory Champagne et al: Fasting physiology of the pinnipeds.- Kent A. Hatch: The use and application of stable isotope analysis to the study of starvation, fasting, and nutritional stress.- Kevin Grant: Study and treatment of human starvation in the United Kingdom and India.- Kevin D. Hall: Quantitative physiology of human starvation: adaptations of energy expenditure, macronutrient metabolism and body composition.- Krista A. Varady: Alternate day fasting: effects on body weight and chronic disease risk in humans and animals.- Marshall D. McCue: Horizons in starvation research.

Cost of Producing Venom in Three North American Pitviper Species

Abstract: For over a century, hypotheses regarding the primary functional utility of snake venoms have been debated in literature. Researchers have speculated that the development of venom delivery systems has been a key innovation leading to the evolutionary radiation of venomous snakes over the past 25–30 million years. Interestingly, little is known about the energetic requirements involved in producing venoms in these animals. Here I examined the metabolic cost associated with venom production in three species of North American pitvipers. Immediately following venom extraction, snakes demonstrated an 11% increase in resting metabolic rates during the first 72 h of venom replenishment; this metabolic increase was apparently a result of metabolic costs involved with venom production and was an order of magnitude greater than that predicted for producing an identical mass of mixed body growth. Extracted liquid venom yield of snakes was allometrically correlated with snake body mass (4.77W0.60) and had mea...

The Theory of Island Biogeography

Abstract: Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

Influence of Diet On the Distribtion of Nitrogen Isotopes in Animals

Abstract: The influence of diet on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals was investigated by analyzing animals grown in the laboratory on diets of constant nitrogen isotopic composition. The isotopic composition of the nitrogen in an animal reflects the nitrogen isotopic composition of its diet. The δ^(15)N values of the whole bodies of animals are usually more positive than those of their diets. Different individuals of a species raised on the same diet can have significantly different δ^(15)N values. The variability of the relationship between the δ^(15)N values of animals and their diets is greater for different species raised on the same diet than for the same species raised on different diets. Different tissues of mice are also enriched in ^(15)N relative to the diet, with the difference between the δ^(15)N values of a tissue and the diet depending on both the kind of tissue and the diet involved. The δ^(15)N values of collagen and chitin, biochemical components that are often preserved in fossil animal remains, are also related to the δ^(15)N value of the diet. The dependence of the δ^(15)N values of whole animals and their tissues and biochemical components on the δ^(15)N value of diet indicates that the isotopic composition of animal nitrogen can be used to obtain information about an animal's diet if its potential food sources had different δ^(15)N values. The nitrogen isotopic method of dietary analysis probably can be used to estimate the relative use of legumes vs non-legumes or of aquatic vs terrestrial organisms as food sources for extant and fossil animals. However, the method probably will not be applicable in those modern ecosystems in which the use of chemical fertilizers has influenced the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in food sources. The isotopic method of dietary analysis was used to reconstruct changes in the diet of the human population that occupied the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico over a 7000 yr span. Variations in the δ^(15)C and δ^(15)N values of bone collagen suggest that C_4 and/or CAM plants (presumably mostly corn) and legumes (presumably mostly beans) were introduced into the diet much earlier than suggested by conventional archaeological analysis.

Fast Tree: Computing Large Minimum-Evolution Trees with Profiles instead of a Distance Matrix

Abstract: Gene families are growing rapidly, but standard methods for inferring phylogenies do not scale to alignments with over 10,000 sequences. We present FastTree, a method for constructing large phylogenies and for estimating their reliability. Instead of storing a distance matrix, FastTree stores sequence profiles of internal nodes in the tree. FastTree uses these profiles to implement neighbor-joining and uses heuristics to quickly identify candidate joins. FastTree then uses nearest-neighbor interchanges to reduce the length of the tree. For an alignment with N sequences, L sites, and a different characters, a distance matrix requires O(N^2) space and O(N^2 L) time, but FastTree requires just O( NLa + N sqrt(N) ) memory and O( N sqrt(N) log(N) L a ) time. To estimate the tree's reliability, FastTree uses local bootstrapping, which gives another 100-fold speedup over a distance matrix. For example, FastTree computed a tree and support values for 158,022 distinct 16S ribosomal RNAs in 17 hours and 2.4 gigabytes of memory. Just computing pairwise Jukes-Cantor distances and storing them, without inferring a tree or bootstrapping, would require 17 hours and 50 gigabytes of memory. In simulations, FastTree was slightly more accurate than neighbor joining, BIONJ, or FastME; on genuine alignments, FastTree's topologies had higher likelihoods. FastTree is available at http://microbesonline.org/fasttree.