In dehydrating conditions late instar nymphs lose weight more slowly and survive longer than adult Periplaneta americana. This appears to be due, at least in part, to the larger lipid stores which are found in the fat bodies of the nymphs. When the water loss from an animal is greater than the amount of metabolic water obtained from the catabolism of stored foods, water is removed from the haemolymph in order to maintain water balance in the tissues. Dehydration for 6 days causes the haemolymph volume to decrease markedly in most adults, but the haemolymph Na+ and K+ concentrations increase only slightly. During dehydration the mean Na+/K+ ratio of the fat body tissue increased in adults, except in those which had been fed on pure carbohydrate prior to dehydration. Although not always statistically significant on account of the large variances, the changes in mean Na+, K+ and in the Na+/K+ ratio suggest there is an increase in Na+ and decrease in K+ in the fat body of animals where the haemolymph volume is markedly reduced by dehydration.
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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