Issues

Summary: Sarcolipin plays an important role in muscle-based thermogenesis. It is abundantly expressed in neonatal mouse muscles and cold challenge prevents its developmental downregulation, indicating higher recruitment of muscle-based thermogenesis in neonates.

Highlighted Article: Ichneumonid spider ectoparasitoids manipulate the web-building behaviour of host spiders to make the original web into an alternative ‘cocoon web’ by exploiting preprogrammed resting web construction to add specific thread decoration.

Summary: For organisms that maintain morphology and swimming behaviour over ontogeny, we show that distinct propulsive wake structures alter swimming performance and energetics.

Summary: Sensory processing by mechanoreceptors within the antenna of the American cockroach provides neural signals that enable rapid implementation of feedback control to stabilize high-speed running.

Summary: Multiple abiotic stressors can interact to affect the development rate of horseshoe crab embryos in ways that cannot be predicted from the effects of the stressors in isolation.

Highlighted Article: Preconditioning and trans-generational acclimatization may provide a buffer for reef-building corals against the stress of rapidly changing climate.

Summary: High-Antarctic fish exposed to a temperature increase of 2°C show an 84% reduction in growth, in contrast to a complete temperature compensation of routine metabolism.

Summary: Musculoskeletal models developed from anatomical experiments reveal the biomechanical features that increase the potential of the human iliotibial band to store and recover elastic energy during bipedal walking compared with the chimp fascia lata.

Summary: Computational fluid dynamics simulations show that, in macaques, morphological variation in the nasal region, including the maxillary sinus, is not explained by the differences and transitions of habitat environment, including temperature and humidity.

Highlighted Article: Snow leopards are high-altitude specialists that survive and function in low-oxygen conditions but, surprisingly, they possess characteristically feline hemoglobins with low-oxygen affinities and diminished capacities for allosteric regulatory control.

Summary: Toads modulate wrist muscle activation patterns depending on how far they hop, presumably to tune wrist stiffness to the impending force of impact.

Summary: Burrowing skinks have a lower net cost of burrowing than tunnel-constructing endotherms and exhibit morphological specialisation associated with burrowing.

Summary: Starvation increases the energy coupling efficiency of muscle mitochondria, which triggers an economical management of fuels and might drive the fatty acid shift from oxidation to storage within the tissue.

Summary: Geckos running along wet substrates suffer no significant loss in locomotor performance over short distances.

Highlighted Article: Frequency peaks in bellows of a Chinese alligator breathing a helium–oxygen mixture instead of air shift to significantly higher frequencies, showing that crocodilian vocalizations contain vocal resonance frequencies or ‘formants’.

Summary: Manipulations of oxygen availability and transport capacity in European perch show that the acute upper thermal limit of fishes is not universally limited by oxygen supply.

Summary: Experimental results support the hypothesis that the false killer whale is ‘focusing’ its sonar beam, producing a narrower and more intense signal than that predicted by spherical spreading.

Summary: Psychophysical testing of vibration detection in the harbor seal demonstrates acute sensitivity of the vibrissal system.

Summary: Faster steady-state locomotion speeds are not achieved by proportional increases in lower-limb joint work and average power.

Summary: Onset of host-seeking behaviour in malaria mosquitoes is correlated with an increased receptor gene expression, and physiological and behavioural sensitivity to CO₂.