The catecholamines, adrenalin, dopamine and noradrenalin induce differential aggregation of melanophores in black-adapted winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus, paralleling patterning responses to albedo change. These differential responses to catecholamines suggest that the patterning mechanism in this species is largely dependent on a balance between neural aggregating and dispersing elements. The α-adrenoceptor agonist phenylephrine evokes paling in all pattern components in blackadapted flounder, whilst the α-adrenoceptor antagonist phentolamine darkens white-adapted flounders. The α-adrenoceptor agonist isoproterenol and the α-adrenoceptor antagonist propranalol have no effect on chromatophores of white-adapted flounder, but induce pallor in blackadapted flounder, which is interpreted as non specific. Noradrenalin elicits patterning responses in chromatically decentralized flounder, although the duration of pallor is shorter. The xanthophores, which are dispersed by a pituitary factor, will aggregate in response to high catecholamine doses.
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Call for new preLighters
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preLights is the preprint highlighting community supported by The Company of Biologists. At the heart of preLights are our preLighters: early-career researchers who select and write about interesting new preprints for the research community. We are currently looking for new preLighters to join our team. Find out more and apply here.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
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Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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