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117-413: Acclimatization or acclimatisation ( also called acclimation or acclimatation ) is the process in which an individual organism adjusts to a change in its environment (such as a change in altitude, temperature, humidity, photoperiod , or pH ), allowing it to maintain fitness across a range of environmental conditions. Acclimatization occurs in a short period of time (hours to weeks), and within

234-578: A behavior under selection causes changes in subordinate traits that in turn enhance the ability of the organism to perform the behavior. For example, birds that engage in altitudinal migration might make "trial runs" lasting a few hours that would induce physiological changes that would improve their ability to function at high altitude. Woolly bear caterpillars ( Grammia incorrupta ) infected with tachinid flies increase their survival by ingesting plants containing toxins known as pyrrolizidine alkaloids . The physiological basis for this change in behaviour

351-686: A consonant followed by an unstressed -re (pronounced /ə(r)/ ). In modern American English, most of these words have the ending -er . The difference is most common for words ending in -bre or -tre : British spellings calibre , centre , fibre , goitre , litre , lustre , manoeuvre , meagre , metre (length) , mitre , nitre , ochre , reconnoitre , sabre , saltpetre , sepulchre , sombre , spectre , theatre (see exceptions ) and titre all have -er in American spelling. In Britain, both -re and -er spellings were common before Johnson's 1755 dictionary

468-468: A distinctive set of Canadian English spellings is viewed by many Canadians as one of the unique aspects of Canadian culture (especially when compared to the United States). In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use throughout the 19th century and in the early 20th century. Like Canada, though, most major Australian newspapers have switched from " -or " endings to " -our " endings. The " -our " spelling

585-490: A emium , and a enigma . In others, it is kept in all varieties: for example, phoenix , and usually subpoena , but Phenix in Virginia . This is especially true of names: Aegean (the sea), Caesar , Oedipus , Phoebe , etc., although "caesarean section" may be spelled as "cesarean section". There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g., larv ae ); nor where the digraph <ae>/<oe> does not result from

702-458: A eon , an a emia , an a esthesia , c a ecum , c a esium , c o eliac , diarrh o ea , encyclop a edia , f a eces , f o etal , gyn a ecology , h a emoglobin , h a emophilia , leuk a emia , o esophagus , o estrogen , orthop a edic , pal a eontology , p a ediatric , p a edophile . Oenology is acceptable in American English but is deemed

819-494: A form of adaptive plasticity. Various species of non-human primates infected with intestinal worms engage in leaf-swallowing, in which they ingest rough, whole leaves that physically dislodge parasites from the intestine. Additionally, the leaves irritate the gastric mucosa , which promotes the secretion of gastric acid and increases gut motility , effectively flushing parasites from the system. The term "self-induced adaptive plasticity" has been used to describe situations in which

936-418: A higher altitude naturally acclimatize to their new environment by developing an increase in the number of red blood cells to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood , in order to compensate for lower levels of oxygen intake. American and British English spelling differences#iseize Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of

1053-667: A higher running speed at warmer temperatures than lizards that were not acclimated to warm conditions. Fruit flies that develop at relatively cooler or warmer temperatures have increased cold or heat tolerance as adults, respectively ( See Developmental plasticity ). The salt content of sweat and urine decreases as people acclimatize to hot conditions. Plasma volume, heart rate, and capillary activation are also affected. Acclimatization to high altitude continues for months or even years after initial ascent, and ultimately enables humans to survive in an environment that, without acclimatization, would kill them. Humans who migrate permanently to

1170-527: A minor variant of enology , whereas although archeology and ameba exist in American English, the British versions amoeba and archaeology are more common. The chemical haem (named as a shortening of h a emoglobin ) is spelled heme in American English, to avoid confusion with hem . Canadian English mostly follows American English in this respect, although it is split on gynecology (e.g. Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada vs.

1287-554: A mistaken etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling fetus reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide; the Oxford English Dictionary notes that "In Latin manuscripts both fētus and foetus are used". The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as <ae> and <oe>. The ligatures æ and œ were introduced when

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1404-434: A plant in that they create an avenue where photosynthesis and thermoregulation can occur. Evolutionarily, the environmental contribution to leaf shape allowed for a myriad of different types of leaves to be created. Leaf shape can be determined by both genetics and the environment. Environmental factors, such as light and humidity, have been shown to affect leaf morphology, giving rise to the question of how this shape change

1521-457: A plants lifetime and are vital to maximize plant fitness. The developmental effects of nutrition and temperature have been demonstrated. The gray wolf ( Canis lupus ) has wide phenotypic plasticity. Additionally, male speckled wood butterflies have two morphs: one with three dots on its hindwing, and one with four dots on its hindwings. The development of the fourth dot is dependent on environmental conditions – more specifically, location and

1638-574: A starch-rich diet as they fed on refuse from agriculture. Data indicated that the wolves and dingo had just two copies of the gene and the Siberian Husky that is associated with hunter-gatherers had just three or four copies, whereas the Saluki that is associated with the Fertile Crescent where agriculture originated had 29 copies. The results show that on average, modern dogs have a high copy number of

1755-660: A suffix for agentive ( reader , user , winner ) and comparative ( louder , nicer ) forms. One outcome is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. However, while " poetic metre " is often spelled as -re , pentameter , hexameter , etc. are always -er . Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words, such as anger , mother , timber and water , and such Romance-derived words as danger , quarter and river . The ending -cre , as in acre , lucre , massacre , and mediocre ,

1872-481: A temporal increase in food intake and can induce dramatic changes in the size of the gut; the Burmese python ( Python molurus bivittatus ) can triple the size of its small intestine just a few days after feeding. AMY2B (Alpha-Amylase 2B) is a gene that codes a protein that assists with the first step in the digestion of dietary starch and glycogen . An expansion of this gene in dogs would enable early dogs to exploit

1989-435: A warmer climate. The North American red squirrel ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus ) has experienced an increase in average temperature over this last decade of almost 2 °C. This increase in temperature has caused an increase in abundance of white spruce cones, the main food source for winter and spring reproduction. In response, the mean lifetime parturition date of this species has advanced by 18 days. Food abundance showed

2106-421: Is Acyrthosiphon pisum of the aphid family, which exhibits the ability to interchange between asexual and sexual reproduction, as well as growing wings between generations when plants become too populated. Water fleas ( Daphnia magna ) have shown both phenotypic plasticity and the ability to genetically evolve to deal with the heat stress of warmer, urban pond waters. Phenotypic plasticity in plants includes

2223-432: Is - /s/ for the noun and - /z/ for the verb). For licence / license or practice / practise , British English also keeps the noun–verb distinction graphically (although phonetically the two words in each pair are homophones with - /s/ pronunciation). On the other hand, American English uses license and practice for both nouns and verbs (with - /s/ pronunciation in both cases too). American English has kept

2340-694: Is a trait that can evolve when under direct selection and also as a correlated response to selection on the average values of particular traits. Temporal plasticity , also known as fine-grained environmental adaptation, is a type of phenotypic plasticity that involves the phenotypic change of organisms in response to changes in the environment over time. Animals can respond to short-term environmental changes with physiological (reversible) and behavioral changes; plants, which are sedentary, respond to short-term environmental changes with both physiological and developmental (non-reversible) changes. Unprecedented rates of climate change are predicted to occur over

2457-402: Is being done to support the agricultural industry, which faces severe challenges in prediction of crop phenotypic expression in changing environments. Since many crops supporting the global food supply are grown in a wide variety of environments, understanding and ability to predict crop genotype by environment interaction will be essential for future food stability. Leaves are very important to

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2574-422: Is controlled at the molecular level. This means that different leaves could have the same gene but present a different form based on environmental factors. Plants are sessile, so this phenotypic plasticity allows the plant to take in information from its environment and respond without changing its location. In order to understand how leaf morphology works, the anatomy of a leaf must be understood. The main part of

2691-502: Is dictated by their phenotypic plasticity or the ability of an organism to change certain traits. Recent research in the study of acclimation capacity has focused more heavily on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity rather than acclimation responses. Scientists believe that when they understand more about how organisms evolved the capacity to acclimate, they will better understand acclimation. Many plants, such as maple trees , irises , and tomatoes , can survive freezing temperatures if

2808-399: Is dropped for other derivations, for example, central , fibrous , spectral . However, the existence of related words without e before the r is not proof for the existence of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance come from enter , which has not been spelled entre for centuries. The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as

2925-506: Is facilitated by an increase in digestive organ size and capacity, which is similar to the phenotype produced by poor quality diets. During lactation, common degus ( Octodon degus ) increase the mass of their liver, small intestine, large intestine and cecum by 15–35%. Increases in food intake do not cause changes in the activity of digestive enzymes because nutrient concentrations in the intestinal lumen are determined by food quality and remain unaffected. Intermittent feeding also represents

3042-490: Is generally preferred over oe and often over ae , but oe and ae are sometimes found in academic and scientific writing as well as government publications (for example, the fee schedule of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan ) and some words such as palaeontology or aeon . In Australia, it can go either way, depending on the word: for instance, medieval is spelled with the e rather than ae , following

3159-407: Is increased by changing phenotype. A similar logic should apply in artificial evolution attempting to introduce phenotypic plasticity to artificial agents. However, the fitness benefits of plasticity can be limited by the energetic costs of plastic responses (e.g. synthesizing new proteins, adjusting expression ratio of isozyme variants, maintaining sensory machinery to detect changes) as well as

3276-586: Is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor . Proper names such as Pearl Harbor or Sydney Harbour are usually spelled according to their native-variety spelling vocabulary. The name of the herb savory is spelled thus everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry , like savo(u)r , has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above, as does

3393-585: Is less commonly encountered, and fewer dictionaries enter it. In order to maintain performance across a range of environmental conditions, there are several strategies organisms use to acclimate. In response to changes in temperature, organisms can change the biochemistry of cell membranes making them more fluid in cold temperatures and less fluid in warm temperatures by increasing the number of membrane proteins . In response to certain stressors, some organisms express so-called heat shock proteins that act as molecular chaperones and reduce denaturation by guiding

3510-593: Is sometimes used. The ratio between -ise and -ize stood at 3:2 in the British National Corpus up to 2002. The spelling -ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times (which switched conventions in 1992), The Daily Telegraph , The Economist and the BBC . The Government of the United Kingdom additionally uses -ise , stating "do not use Americanisms" justifying that

3627-714: Is standard worldwide and complection is rare. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes proscribed, is on equal ground in the U.S. with complexioned. It is not used in this way in the UK, although there exists a rare alternative meaning of complicated . In some cases, words with "old-fashioned" spellings are retained widely in the U.S. for historical reasons (cf. connexionalism ). Many words, especially medical words, that are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English are written with just an e in American English. The sounds in question are /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or, unstressed, /i/ , /ɪ/ or /ə/ ). Examples (with non-American letter in bold ):

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3744-581: Is taught in schools nationwide as part of the Australian curriculum. The most notable countrywide use of the -or ending is for one of the country's major political parties, the Australian Labor Party , which was originally called "the Australian Labour Party" (name adopted in 1908), but was frequently referred to as both "Labour" and "Labor". The "Labor" was adopted from 1912 onward due to

3861-416: Is termed polyphenism . Generally, phenotypic plasticity is more important for immobile organisms (e.g. plants ) than mobile organisms (e.g. most animals ), as mobile organisms can often move away from unfavourable environments. Nevertheless, mobile organisms also have at least some degree of plasticity in at least some aspects of the phenotype . One mobile organism with substantial phenotypic plasticity

3978-530: Is the usual form of the male given name, as a surname both the spellings Peter and Petre (the latter notably borne by a British lord ) are found. For British accoutre , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling, but The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language prefers the -er spelling. More recent French loanwords keep

4095-461: Is unknown; however, it is possible that, when activated, the immune system sends signals to the taste system that trigger plasticity in feeding responses during infection. Reproduction The red-eyed tree frog, Agalychnis callidryas , is an arboreal frog (hylid) that resides in the tropics of Central America. Unlike many frogs, the red-eyed tree frog has arboreal eggs which are laid on leaves hanging over ponds or large puddles and, upon hatching,

4212-481: Is used in both British and American English to show that the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/ . The spellings euchre and ogre are also the same in both British and American English. Fire and its associated adjective fiery are the same in both British and American English, although the noun was spelled fier in Old and Middle English. Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both

4329-578: The -meter suffix (from Ancient Greek - μέτρον métron , via French -mètre ) normally had the -re spelling from earliest use in English but were superseded by -er . Examples include thermometer and barometer . The e preceding the r is kept in American-inflected forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers , reconnoitered , centering , which are fibres , reconnoitred , and centring respectively in British English. According to

4446-560: The -ise form as an alternative. Publications by Oxford University Press (OUP)—such as Henry Watson Fowler 's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , Hart's Rules , and The Oxford Guide to English Usage —also recommend -ize . However, Robert Allan's Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage considers either spelling to be acceptable anywhere but the U.S. American spelling avoids -ise endings in words like organize , realize and recognize . British spelling mostly uses -ise ( organise , realise , recognise ), though -ize

4563-598: The -ise form is preferred in Australian English at a ratio of about 3:1 according to the Macquarie Dictionary . Phenotypic plasticity The term was originally used to describe developmental effects on morphological characters, but is now more broadly used to describe all phenotypic responses to environmental change, such as acclimation ( acclimatization ), as well as learning . The special case when differences in environment induce discrete phenotypes

4680-450: The -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used ( /rə/ rather than /ə(r)/ ), as with double entendre , genre and oeuvre . However, the unstressed /ə(r)/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more (or less) often with some words, including cadre , macabre , maître d' , Notre Dame , piastre , and timbre . The -re endings are mostly standard throughout

4797-483: The Canadian Medical Association 's Canadian specialty profile of Obstetrics/gynecology ). Pediatrician is preferred roughly 10 to 1 over paediatrician , while foetal and oestrogen are similarly uncommon. Words that can be spelled either way in American English include a esthetics and arch a eology (which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology ), as well as pal a estra , for which

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4914-534: The OED , centring is a "word ... of 3 syllables (in careful pronunciation)" (i.e., /ˈsɛntərɪŋ/ ), yet there is no vowel in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable ( /ə/ ). The OED third edition (revised entry of June 2016) allows either two or three syllables. On the Oxford Dictionaries Online website, the three-syllable version is listed only as the American pronunciation of centering . The e

5031-542: The Simplified Spelling Board in the early 20th century, but most were not adopted. In Britain, the influence of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French ) spellings of words proved to be decisive. Later spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on today's American spellings and vice versa. For the most part, the spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland closely resemble

5148-491: The activity of particular digestive enzymes on the brush border of the small intestine . For example, in the first few days after hatching, nestling house sparrows ( Passer domesticus ) transition from an insect diet, high in protein and lipids, to a seed based diet that contains mostly carbohydrates; this diet change is accompanied by two-fold increase in the activity of the enzyme maltase , which digests carbohydrates. Acclimatizing animals to high protein diets can increase

5265-405: The digestive system allows some animals to respond to changes in dietary nutrient composition, diet quality, and energy requirements. Changes in the nutrient composition of the diet (the proportion of lipids, proteins and carbohydrates) may occur during development (e.g. weaning) or with seasonal changes in the abundance of different food types. These diet changes can elicit plasticity in

5382-682: The folding and refolding of proteins. It has been shown that organisms which are acclimated to high or low temperatures display relatively high resting levels of heat shock proteins so that when they are exposed to even more extreme temperatures the proteins are readily available. Expression of heat shock proteins and regulation of membrane fluidity are just two of many biochemical methods organisms use to acclimate to novel environments. Organisms are able to change several characteristics relating to their morphology in order to maintain performance in novel environments. For example, birds often increase their organ size to increase their metabolism. This can take

5499-483: The lipid composition of cell membranes . Temperature change influences the fluidity of cell membranes by affecting the motion of the fatty acyl chains of glycerophospholipids . Because maintaining membrane fluidity is critical for cell function, ectotherms adjust the phospholipid composition of their cell membranes such that the strength of van der Waals forces within the membrane is changed, thereby maintaining fluidity across temperatures. Phenotypic plasticity of

5616-531: The theatre spelling. (The word "theater" in American English is a place where both stage performances and screenings of films take place, but in British English a "theatre" is where stage performances take place but not film screenings – these take place in a cinema, or "picture theatre" in Australia.) In the United States, the spelling theatre is sometimes used when referring to the art form of theatre, while

5733-515: The u has since been dropped: ambassadour , emperour , errour , governour , horrour , inferiour , mirrour , perturbatour , superiour , tenour , terrour , tremour . Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but chose the spelling best derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". English speakers who moved to

5850-435: The u : In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all cases (for example, favorite , savory etc.) since the u is absent to begin with. American usage, in most cases, keeps the u in the word glamour , which comes from Scots , not Latin or French. Glamor is sometimes used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or . Nevertheless,

5967-649: The ‑our/or group do not have a Latin counterpart that ends in ‑or ; for example, armo(u)r , behavio(u)r , harbo(u)r , neighbo(u)r ; also arbo(u)r , meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor , a false cognate of the other word. The word arbor would be more accurately spelled arber or arbre in the US and the UK, respectively, the latter of which is the French word for "tree". Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that ‑or be used for words from Latin (e.g., color ) and ‑our for French loans; however, in many cases,

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6084-441: The 17th and 18th centuries, whereas there are thousands of examples of their -our counterparts. One notable exception is honor . Honor and honour were equally frequent in Britain until the 17th century; honor only exists in the UK now as the spelling of Honor Oak , a district of London, and of the occasional given name Honor . In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, British usage depends on

6201-593: The 1970s, but had by then been overtaken by connection in regular usage (for example, in more popular newspapers). Connexion (and its derivatives connexional and connexionalism ) is still in use by the Methodist Church of Great Britain to refer to the whole church as opposed to its constituent districts, circuits and local churches, whereas the US-majority United Methodist Church uses Connection . Complexion (which comes from complex )

6318-704: The American National Theatre was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National Theater ", but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. has the more common American spelling theater in its references to the Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use

6435-480: The American and British varieties of English. However, English-language spelling reform has rarely been adopted otherwise. As a result, modern English orthography varies only minimally between countries and is far from phonemic in any country. In the early 18th century, English spelling was inconsistent. These differences became noticeable after the publication of influential dictionaries . Today's British English spellings mostly follow Johnson's A Dictionary of

6552-413: The American usage along with numerous other words such as eon or fetus , while other words such as oestrogen or paediatrician are spelled the British way. The Macquarie Dictionary also notes a growing tendency towards replacing ae and oe with e worldwide and with the exception of manoeuvre, all British or American spellings are acceptable variants. Elsewhere, the British usage prevails, but

6669-581: The Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense , which are defence and offence in British English. Likewise, there are the American pretense and British pretence ; but derivatives such as defensive , offensive , and pretension are always thus spelled in both systems. Australian and Canadian usages generally follow British usage. The spelling connexion is now rare in everyday British usage, its use lessening as knowledge of Latin attenuates, and it has almost never been used in

6786-440: The British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared with other English-speaking nationalities. Australian English mostly follows British spelling norms but has strayed slightly, with some American spellings incorporated as standard. New Zealand English is almost identical to British spelling, except in

6903-637: The British usage of -our . This coincided with a renewed interest in Canadian English, and the release of the updated Gage Canadian Dictionary in 1997 and the first Canadian Oxford Dictionary in 1998. Historically, most libraries and educational institutions in Canada have supported the use of the Oxford English Dictionary rather than the American Webster's Dictionary . Today, the use of

7020-465: The Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognized as minor variants in Canada, partly due to United States influence. They are sometimes used in proper names (such as Toronto's controversially named Centerpoint Mall ). For advice / advise and device / devise , American English and British English both keep the noun–verb distinction both graphically and phonetically (where the pronunciation

7137-512: The English Language (1755), while many American English spellings follow Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language ("ADEL", "Webster's Dictionary", 1828). Webster was a proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. In A Companion to the American Revolution (2008), John Algeo notes: "it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He

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7254-482: The Greek-style ligature as, for example, in maelstrom or toe ; the same is true for the British form aeroplane (compare other aero- words such as aerosol ) . The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modelled after airship and aircraft . The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro- . In Canada, e

7371-515: The US: the more common connection has become the standard worldwide. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the original Latin word had -xio- . The American usage comes from Webster , who abandoned -xion and preferred -ction . Connexion was still the house style of The Times of London until the 1980s and was still used by Post Office Telecommunications for its telephone services in

7488-491: The United States took these preferences with them. In the early 20th century, H. L. Mencken notes that " honor appears in the 1776 Declaration of Independence , but it seems to have been put there rather by accident than by design". In Jefferson 's original draft it is spelled "honour". In Britain, examples of behavior , color , flavor , harbor , and neighbor rarely appear in Old Bailey court records from

7605-423: The United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the villages of Newton Centre and Rockville Centre , the city of Centreville , Centre County and Centre College . Sometimes, these places were named before spelling changes but more often the spelling serves as an affectation. Proper names are usually spelled according to their native-variety spelling vocabulary; so, for instance, although Peter

7722-476: The United States. A "British standard" began to emerge following the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson 's A Dictionary of the English Language , and an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and, in particular, his An American Dictionary of the English Language , first published in 1828. Webster's efforts at spelling reform were effective in his native country, resulting in certain well-known patterns of spelling differences between

7839-476: The action of reproductive hormones on their target organs. Changes in reproductive effort during infection is also thought to be a less costly alternative to mounting resistance or defence against invading parasites, although it can occur in concert with a defence response. Hosts can also respond to parasitism through plasticity in physiology aside from reproduction. House mice infected with intestinal nematodes experience decreased rates of glucose transport in

7956-449: The activity of aminopeptidase -N, which digests proteins. Poor quality diets (those that contain a large amount of non-digestible material) have lower concentrations of nutrients, so animals must process a greater total volume of poor-quality food to extract the same amount of energy as they would from a high-quality diet. Many species respond to poor quality diets by increasing their food intake, enlarging digestive organs, and increasing

8073-601: The adjective glamorous often drops the first "u". Saviour is a somewhat common variant of savior in the US. The British spelling is very common for honour (and favour ) in the formal language of wedding invitations in the US. The name of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it because the spacecraft was named after British Captain James Cook 's ship, HMS Endeavour . The (former) special car on Amtrak 's Coast Starlight train

8190-507: The building itself, as noted above, generally is spelled theater . For example, the University of Wisconsin–Madison has a "Department of Theatre and Drama", which offers courses that lead to the "Bachelor of Arts in Theatre ", and whose professed aim is "to prepare our graduate students for successful 21st Century careers in the theatre both as practitioners and scholars". Some placenames in

8307-429: The capacity of the digestive tract (e.g. prairie voles , Mongolian gerbils , Japanese quail , wood ducks , mallards ). Poor quality diets also result in lower concentrations of nutrients in the lumen of the intestine, which can cause a decrease in the activity of several digestive enzymes. Animals often consume more food during periods of high energy demand (e.g. lactation or cold exposure in endotherms ), this

8424-425: The capacity to acclimate to novel environments has been well documented in thousands of species, researchers still know very little about how and why organisms acclimate the way that they do. The nouns acclimatization and acclimation (and the corresponding verbs acclimatize and acclimate ) are widely regarded as synonymous , both in general vocabulary and in medical vocabulary. The synonym acclimation

8541-452: The cat-eyed snake. When a clutch was attacked at six days of age, the entire clutch hatched at the same time, almost instantaneously. However, when a clutch is not presented with the threat of predation, the eggs hatch gradually over time with the first few hatching around seven days after oviposition, and the last of the clutch hatching around day ten. Karen Warkentin's study further explores the benefits and trade-offs of hatching plasticity in

8658-426: The close historic, economic, and cultural relationship with the United States, -or endings are also sometimes used. Throughout the late 19th and early to mid-20th century, most Canadian newspapers chose to use the American usage of -or endings, originally to save time and money in the era of manual movable type . However, in the 1990s, the majority of Canadian newspapers officially updated their spelling policies to

8775-625: The concentration of the nutrient and the salinity of the soil. Some plants, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum for example, are able to alter their photosynthetic pathways to use less water when they become water- or salt-stressed. Because of phenotypic plasticity, it is hard to explain and predict the traits when plants are grown in natural conditions unless an explicit environment index can be obtained to quantify environments. Identification of such explicit environment indices from critical growth periods being highly correlated with sorghum and rice flowering time enables such predictions. Additional work

8892-483: The cost of sensing the environmental conditions and regulating responses, producing structures required for plasticity (such as the energetic costs in expressing heat shock proteins ), and genetic costs (such as linkage of plasticity-related genes with harmful genes). Given the shortcomings of the beneficial acclimation hypothesis, researchers are continuing to search for a theory that will be supported by empirical data. The degree to which organisms are able to acclimate

9009-410: The difference in chemical cues between the predatory and non-predatory sunfish. Thus, the snails respond inappropriately to non-predatory sunfish by producing an altered shell shape and reducing growth. These changes, in the absence of a predator, make the snails susceptible to other predators and limit fecundity . Therefore, these freshwater snails produce either an adaptive or maladaptive response to

9126-403: The dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e., " movie theaters "); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times would use theater in its entertainment section. However, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theatres on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003,

9243-461: The early stages of exposure to compensate for future loss of reproductive success. A reduction in fecundity may also occur as a means of re-directing nutrients to an immune response, or to increase longevity of the host. This particular form of plasticity has been shown in certain cases to be mediated by host-derived molecules (e.g. schistosomin in snails Lymnaea stagnalis infected with trematodes Trichobilharzia ocellata ) that interfere with

9360-558: The egg five days after oviposition when faced with an immediate threat of predation. The egg clutches take in important information from the vibrations felt around them and use it to determine whether or not they are at risk of predation. In the event of a snake attack, the clutch identifies the threat by the vibrations given off which, in turn, stimulates hatching almost instantaneously. In a controlled experiment conducted by Karen Warkentin, hatching rate and ages of red-eyed tree frogs were observed in clutches that were and were not attacked by

9477-703: The ending became ‑our to match the later Old French spelling. The ‑our ending was used not only in new English borrowings, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used ‑or . However, ‑or was still sometimes found. The first three folios of Shakespeare 's plays used both spellings before they were standardised to ‑our in the Fourth Folio of 1685. After the Renaissance , new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original ‑or ending, and many words once ending in ‑our (for example, chancellour and governour ) reverted to ‑or . A few words of

9594-486: The environmental cue depending on whether predatory sunfish are present or not. Given the profound ecological importance of temperature and its predictable variability over large spatial and temporal scales, adaptation to thermal variation has been hypothesized to be a key mechanism dictating the capacity of organisms for phenotypic plasticity. The magnitude of thermal variation is thought to be directly proportional to plastic capacity, such that species that have evolved in

9711-406: The etymology was not clear, and therefore some scholars advocated ‑or only and others ‑our only. Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 (pre-U.S. independence and establishment) dictionary used -our for all words still so spelled in Britain (like colour ), but also for words where

9828-470: The form of an increase in the mass of nutritional organs or heat-producing organs, like the pectorals (with the latter being more consistent across species). While the capacity for acclimatization has been documented in thousands of species, researchers still know very little about how and why organisms acclimate in the way that they do. Since researchers first began to study acclimation, the overwhelming hypothesis has been that all acclimation serves to enhance

9945-683: The gene, whereas wolves and dingoes do not. The high copy number of AMY2B variants likely already existed as a standing variation in early domestic dogs, but expanded more recently with the development of large agriculturally based civilizations. Infection with parasites can induce phenotypic plasticity as a means to compensate for the detrimental effects caused by parasitism. Commonly, invertebrates respond to parasitic castration or increased parasite virulence with fecundity compensation in order to increase their reproductive output, or fitness . For example, water fleas ( Daphnia magna ), exposed to microsporidian parasites produce more offspring in

10062-669: The influence of the American labor movement and King O'Malley . On top of that, some place names in South Australia such as Victor Harbor , Franklin Harbor or Outer Harbor are usually spelled with the -or spellings. Aside from that, -our is now almost universal in Australia but the -or endings remain a minority variant. New Zealand English , while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English , follows British usage. In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with

10179-439: The intestine. To compensate for this, mice increase the total mass of mucosal cells, cells responsible for glucose transport, in the intestine. This allows infected mice to maintain the same capacity for glucose uptake and body size as uninfected mice. Phenotypic plasticity can also be observed as changes in behaviour. In response to infection, both vertebrates and invertebrates practice self-medication , which can be considered

10296-429: The leaf, the blade or lamina, consists of the epidermis, mesophyll, and vascular tissue. The epidermis contains stomata which allows for gas exchange and controls perspiration of the plant. The mesophyll contains most of the chloroplast where photosynthesis can occur. Developing a wide blade/lamina can maximize the amount of light hitting the leaf, thereby increasing photosynthesis, however too much sunlight can damage

10413-490: The light tend to be thicker, which maximizes photosynthesis in direct light; and have a smaller area, which cools the leaf more rapidly (due to a thinner boundary layer ). Conversely, leaves grown in the shade tend to be thinner, with a greater surface area to capture more of the limited light. Dandelion are well known for exhibiting considerable plasticity in form when growing in sunny versus shaded environments. The transport proteins present in roots also change depending on

10530-414: The nature of the suffix used. The u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (for example in humourless , neighbourhood , and savoury ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been adopted into English (for example in behaviourism , favourite , and honourable ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words,

10647-413: The next 100 years as a result of human activity. Phenotypic plasticity is a key mechanism with which organisms can cope with a changing climate, as it allows individuals to respond to change within their lifetime. This is thought to be particularly important for species with long generation times, as evolutionary responses via natural selection may not produce change fast enough to mitigate the effects of

10764-498: The organism's lifetime (compared to adaptation , which is evolution, taking place over many generations). This may be a discrete occurrence (for example, when mountaineers acclimate to high altitude over hours or days) or may instead represent part of a periodic cycle, such as a mammal shedding heavy winter fur in favor of a lighter summer coat. Organisms can adjust their morphological, behavioral, physical, and/or biochemical traits in response to changes in their environment. While

10881-524: The performance of the organism. This idea has come to be known as the beneficial acclimation hypothesis . Despite such widespread support for the beneficial acclimation hypothesis, not all studies show that acclimation always serves to enhance performance ( See beneficial acclimation hypothesis ). One of the major objections to the beneficial acclimation hypothesis is that it assumes that there are no costs associated with acclimation. However, there are likely to be costs associated with acclimation. These include

10998-426: The phytohormones can cause a change in development. Studies on the aquatic plant species Ludwigia arcuata have been done to look at the role of abscisic acid (ABA), as L. arcuata is known to exhibit phenotypic plasticity and has two different types of leaves, the aerial type (leaves that touch the air) and the submerged type (leaves that are underwater). When adding ABA to the underwater shoots of L. arcuata ,

11115-424: The plant was able to produce aerial type leaves underwater, suggesting that increased concentrations of ABA in the shoots, likely caused by air contact or a lack of water, triggers the change from the submerged type of leaf to the aerial type. This suggests ABA's role in leaf phenotypic change and its importance in regulating stress through environmental change (such as adapting from being underwater to above water). In

11232-425: The plant. Wide lamina can also catch wind easily which can cause stress to the plant, so finding a happy medium is imperative to the plants’ fitness. The Genetic Regulatory Network is responsible for creating this phenotypic plasticity and involves a variety of genes and proteins regulating leaf morphology. Phytohormones have been shown to play a key role in signaling throughout the plant, and changes in concentration of

11349-460: The predictability and reliability of environmental cues (see Beneficial acclimation hypothesis ). Freshwater snails ( Physa virgata ), provide an example of when phenotypic plasticity can be either adaptive or maladaptive . In the presence of a predator, bluegill sunfish , these snails make their shell shape more rotund and reduce growth. This makes them more crush-resistant and better protected from predation. However, these snails cannot tell

11466-476: The process of plant acclimatisation at different levels of photosynthetic photon flux. Animals acclimatize in many ways. Sheep grow very thick wool in cold, damp climates. Fish are able to adjust only gradually to changes in water temperature and quality. Tropical fish sold at pet stores are often kept in acclimatization bags until this process is complete. Lowe & Vance (1995) were able to show that lizards acclimated to warm temperatures could maintain

11583-543: The red-eyed tree frog. Plasticity is usually thought to be an evolutionary adaptation to environmental variations that is reasonably predictable and occurs within the lifespan of an individual organism, as it allows individuals to 'fit' their phenotype to different environments. If the optimal phenotype in a given environment changes with environmental conditions, then the ability of individuals to express different traits should be advantageous and thus selected for . Hence, phenotypic plasticity can evolve if Darwinian fitness

11700-506: The same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography , the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British or Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in

11817-554: The same study, another phytohormone, ethylene, was shown to induce the submerged leaf phenotype unlike ABA, which induced aerial leaf phenotype. Because ethylene is a gas, it tends to stay endogenously within the plant when underwater – this growth in concentration of ethylene induces a change from aerial to submerged leaves and has also been shown to inhibit ABA production, further increasing the growth of submerged type leaves. These factors (temperature, water availability, and phytohormones) contribute to changes in leaf morphology throughout

11934-475: The simplified form palestra is described by Merriam-Webster as "chiefly Brit[ish]." This is a reverse of the typical rule, where British spelling uses the ae / oe and American spelling simply uses e . Words that can be spelled either way in British English include cham a eleon , encyclop a edia , hom o eopathy , medi a eval (a minor variant in both AmE and BrE ), f o etid and f o etus . The spellings f o etus and f o etal are Britishisms based on

12051-410: The sounds became monophthongs , and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli ) and French (for example, œuvre ). In English, which has adopted words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe . In many words, the digraph has been reduced to a lone e in all varieties of English: for example, o economics , pr

12168-505: The species plasticity they are able to express different strategies and foraging behaviors depending on the climate and environment. A main factor that has influenced the species' behavior is where food is located. Plastic responses to temperature are essential among ectothermic organisms , as all aspects of their physiology are directly dependent on their thermal environment. As such, thermal acclimation entails phenotypic adjustments that are found commonly across taxa , such as changes in

12285-672: The spelling "is often seen as such". The -ize form is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary , and of other academic publishers such as Nature , the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement . It can be identified using the IETF language tag en-GB-oxendict (or, historically, by en-GB-oed ). In Ireland, India, Australia, and New Zealand -ise spellings strongly prevail:

12402-608: The spellings with just e are increasingly used. Manoeuvre is the only spelling in Australia, and the most common one in Canada, where maneuver and manoeuver are also sometimes found. The -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen in Britain as an Americanism. It has been in use since the 15th century, predating the -ise spelling by over a century. The verb-forming suffix -ize comes directly from Ancient Greek -ίζειν ( -ízein ) or Late Latin -izāre , while -ise comes via French -iser . The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) recommends -ize and lists

12519-407: The tadpoles fall into the water below. One of the most common predators encountered by these arboreal eggs is the cat-eyed snake, Leptodeira septentrionalis . In order to escape predation, the red-eyed tree frogs have developed a form of adaptive plasticity, which can also be considered phenotypic plasticity, when it comes to hatching age; the clutch is able to hatch prematurely and survive outside of

12636-443: The temperature gradually drops lower and lower each night over a period of days or weeks. The same drop might kill them if it occurred suddenly. Studies have shown that tomato plants that were acclimated to higher temperature over several days were more efficient at photosynthesis at relatively high temperatures than were plants that were not allowed to acclimate. In the orchid Phalaenopsis , phenylpropanoid enzymes are enhanced in

12753-502: The time of year. In amphibians , Pristimantis mutabilis has remarkable phenotypic plasticity, as well as Agalychnis callidryas whose embryos exhibit phenotypic plasticity, hatching early in response to disturbance to protect themselves. Another example is the southern rockhopper penguin . Rockhopper penguins are present at a variety of climates and locations; Amsterdam Island's subtropical waters, Kerguelen Archipelago and Crozet Archipelago 's subantarctic coastal waters. Due to

12870-407: The timing of transition from vegetative to reproductive growth stage, the allocation of more resources to the roots in soils that contain low concentrations of nutrients , the size of the seeds an individual produces depending on the environment, and the alteration of leaf shape, size, and thickness. Leaves are particularly plastic, and their growth may be altered by light levels. Leaves grown in

12987-412: The vowel is unreduced in pronunciation (e.g., devour , contour , flour , hour , paramour , tour , troubadour , and velour ), the spelling is uniform everywhere. Most words of this kind came from Latin, where the ending was spelled ‑or . They were first adopted into English from early Old French , and the ending was spelled ‑our , ‑or or ‑ur . After the Norman conquest of England ,

13104-789: The warm, constant climate of the tropics have a lower capacity for plasticity compared to those living in variable temperate habitats. Termed the "climatic variability hypothesis", this idea has been supported by several studies of plastic capacity across latitude in both plants and animals. However, recent studies of Drosophila species have failed to detect a clear pattern of plasticity over latitudinal gradients, suggesting this hypothesis may not hold true across all taxa or for all traits. Some researchers propose that direct measures of environmental variability, using factors such as precipitation, are better predictors of phenotypic plasticity than latitude alone. Selection experiments and experimental evolution approaches have shown that plasticity

13221-624: The word fiord (instead of fjord ) . There is an increasing use of macrons in words that originated in Māori and an unambiguous preference for -ise endings (see below). Most words ending in an unstressed ‑our in British English (e.g., behaviour , colour , favour , flavour , harbour , honour , humour , labour , neighbour , rumour , splendour ) end in ‑or in American English ( behavior , color , favor , flavor , harbor , honor , humor , labor , neighbor , rumor , splendor ). Wherever

13338-428: The word pallor . As a general noun, rigour / ˈ r ɪ ɡ ər / has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor (sometimes / ˈ r aɪ ɡ ər / ) does not, such as in rigor mortis , which is Latin. Derivations of rigour / rigor such as rigorous , however, are typically spelled without a u , even in the UK. Words with the ending -irior , -erior or similar are spelled thus everywhere. The word armour

13455-428: Was once somewhat common in American usage but has disappeared except in some brand names such as Under Armour . The agent suffix -or ( separator , elevator , translator , animator , etc.) is spelled thus both in American and British English. Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. Canadian English most commonly uses the -our ending and -our- in derivatives and inflected forms. However, owing to

13572-929: Was published. Following this, -re became the most common usage in Britain. In the United States, following the publication of Webster's Dictionary in the early 19th century, American English became more standardized, exclusively using the -er spelling. In addition, spelling of some words have been changed from -re to -er in both varieties. These include September , October , November , December , amber, blister , cadaver , chamber , chapter , charter , cider , coffer , coriander , cover , cucumber , cylinder , diaper , disaster , enter , fever , filter , gender , leper , letter , lobster , master , member , meter (measuring instrument) , minister , monster , murder , number , offer , order , oyster , powder , proper , render , semester , sequester , sinister , sober , surrender , tender , and tiger . Words using

13689-437: Was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the United States, but he did not originate them. Rather [...] he chose already existing options such as center, color and check for the simplicity, analogy or etymology". William Shakespeare 's first folios , for example, used spellings such as center and color as much as centre and colour . Webster did attempt to introduce some reformed spellings, as did

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