A swallow flying in the Lund wind tunnel was observed from the side and from behind, by two synchronised high-speed video cameras. The side-view camera provided a record of the vertical position of a white mark, applied to the feathers behind and below the eye, from which the vertical acceleration was obtained. The rear-view camera provided measurements of the mean angle of the left and right humeri above horizontal. From these data, the force acting on the body, the moment applied by each pectoralis muscle to the humerus and the rotation of the humerus were estimated and used to analyse the time course of a number of variables, including the work done by the muscles in each wing beat. The average mechanical power turned out to be more than that predicted on the basis of current estimates of body drag coefficient and profile power ratio, possibly because the bird was not flying steadily in a minimum-drag configuration. We hope to develop the method further by correlating the mechanical measurements with observations of the vortex wake and to apply it to birds that have been conditioned to hold a constant position in the test section.
Applications open for Workshop on vertebrate gut physiology
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Applications are now open for Inside Out: New Frontiers in the Comparative Physiology of the Vertebrate Gut, a Workshop organised by Carol Bucking and Chris M. Wood that will examine the function of the vertebrate gastro-intestinal tract. Funded places are available for early-career researchers.
JEB will be at the SICB annual meeting
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JEB is proud to sponsor the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting from 3-7 January in Austin. Visit The Company of Biologists’ booth (#507) throughout the meeting to pick up JEB goodies, and attend the Meet the Editors session (with Craig Franklin, Sheila Patek, Monica Daley, Charlotte Rutledge and Jarren Kay) on 4 January to find out more about the journal and pick up our limited-edition centenary T-shirt.
In the field: an interview with Marie Dacke
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Professor Marie Dacke talks about her earliest experiences of working with dung beetles in South Africa, establishing a new field site in Sardinia, Italy, and the pivotal experiments that confirmed that dung beetles can navigate by star light.
Waterproofing prevents antlion jaws from getting clogged
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Self-cleaning waterproof coating prevents ambushing antlion mouthparts from getting clogged with sand.
Finding the right thermal limit
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In this Review, Michael Ørsted, Lisa Bjerregaard Jørgensen and Johannes Overgaard present a framework to reconcile methodological measurements and mechanisms related to the physiology of heat stress tolerance limits, thermal injury and repair in ectotherms.
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