Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: Male orchid bees concoct species-specific blends of ‘perfumes’ by combining environmental volatiles in specialized pockets in their hind legs. Like Euglossa hansoni, which is pictured collecting floral scents at an inflorescence of Anthurium sp. in Costa Rica, these bees have to find elusive odour sources scattered in the rainforest. To test for species-specific sensory adaptations, Mitko et al. (pp. 1467-1475) measured antennal responses to perfume components in a broad comparative study. They found strong antennal sensitivity for certain compounds in those species that are known to actively collect these substances, suggesting that chemical preferences have shaped antennal adaptations. Photo credit: T. Eltz.
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INSIDE JEB
OBITUARY
CLASSICS
COMMENTARY
Terrestrial movement energetics: current knowledge and its application to the optimising animal
Summary: An animal's locomotion costs are governed by intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Animals can modulate these costs according to their priorities, which can be conceptualised as their individual energy landscape.
METHODS & TECHNIQUES
Quantification of sarcomere length distribution in whole muscle frozen sections
Summary: An actuated laser diffraction scanner for sampling large numbers of sarcomeres in whole muscle sections produces two-dimensional sarcomere length maps and shows excellent agreement with microscopy methods.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Evidence for an audience effect in mice: male social partners alter the male vocal response to female cues
Highlighted Article: Mice modify their vocalizations in response to audiences, but not to simple social stimuli, constituting a novel paradigm for measuring the influence of social cues.
Head roll stabilisation in the nocturnal bull ant Myrmecia pyriformis: implications for visual navigation
Summary: Navigating ants keep their head horizontally aligned, but not perfectly so, which has consequences for visual navigation.
Sperm chemotaxis promotes individual fertilization success in sea urchins
Summary: Gamete traits, including sperm motility, play a strong role in sperm competition and fertilization; sperm chemotaxis promotes fertilization, and individual male fertilization correlates with sperm chemotactic behavior.
Olfactory specialization for perfume collection in male orchid bees
Highlighted Article: Electroantennography responses of male orchid bees are species-specific and particularly strong for some of their major perfume ingredients.
Apoptosis-mediated testicular alteration in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) in response to temporal phase relation of serotonergic and dopaminergic oscillations
Summary: Testicular regression in quail in response to 8-h phase relation of 5-HTP and l-DOPA is GnIH induced, p53 dependent and Bax mediated, and this pathway reverses in hypertrophied 12-h quail testes.
Oxygen and energy availability interact to determine flight performance in the Glanville fritillary butterfly
Summary: Low oxygen and circulating trehalose availability constrain flight metabolism in the Glanville fritillary butterfly.
Effects of seasonal acclimatization on temperature dependence of cardiac excitability in the roach, Rutilus rutilus
Summary: Seasonal acclimatization of the electrical excitability of the eurythermal roach increases pumping capacity of the roach heart by maximizing heart rate, but without compromising the stability of cardiac excitation.
Synchronous activity lowers the energetic cost of nest escape for sea turtle hatchlings
Highlighted Article: An increase in sea turtle hatchling cohort size from 10 to 60 hatchlings decreases both the time taken to escape the nest and mean individual metabolic rate over this period by ∼50%, a phenomenon termed ‘social facilitation’.
Center of mass velocity-based predictions in balance recovery following pelvis perturbations during human walking
Summary: By perturbing humans during walking, linear relationships are revealed between the resulting movement velocity of the body, and aspects of the ground reaction force.
Determination of the wingsnap sonation mechanism of the golden-collared manakin (Manacus vitellinus)
Summary: The intense Manacus ‘wingsnap’ involves modified wing bones that, upon collision, are themselves the source of this unusual acoustic signal.
Kinematics of mouthbrooding in Oreochromis niloticus (Cichlidae)
Highlighted Article: Mouthbrooding cichlids regularly use posterior-to-anterior waves of head expansion and significant inflow through the opercular slits to move the brood anteriorly away from the gills.
Heat dissipation does not suppress an immune response in laboratory mice divergently selected for basal metabolic rate (BMR)
Summary: Heat dissipation may constrain physiological processes associated with compulsory heat generation (e.g. lactation), but is unlikely to constrain immune responses in mice.
Phenophysiological variation of a bee that regulates hive humidity, but not hive temperature
Summary: Conservation of water may be of greater physiological importance than thermal tolerance to the tropical bee Austroplebeia essingtoni, which regulates humidity of the hive towards a microclimatic optimum.
Evidence for a role of heme oxygenase-1 in the control of cardiac function in zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae exposed to hypoxia
Summary: The heme oxygenase-1/carbon monoxide (HO-1/CO) system is found in the developing zebrafish heart and plays an inhibitory role in setting the resting cardiac frequency.
Wake analysis of aerodynamic components for the glide envelope of a jackdaw (Corvus monedula)
Summary: Measurements of aerodynamic drag on a jackdaw indicate that lift-induced drag increases with wing flexing and with tail use, while tail use also increases body drag.
Embracing allyship in experimental biology to help close the gender gap

In their Perspective, Janneke Schwaner and Ksenia Keplinger propose 10 useful strategies for experimental biologists at all career stages to become active allies for gender diversity and inclusion and to help close the gender gap in our field.
The Company of Biologists celebrates its first Global South Workshop

In March 2024, Andrea Fuller and Kênia Bicego organised the first Global South (GS) Workshop hosted by The Company of Biologists - How Global South Research Can Shape the Future of Comparative Physiology - bringing together ECRs from the GS and international experts in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Find out about this extraordinary meeting in our Perspective.
High-resolution WildPose 3D scans revolutionise biomechanics in the wild

Collecting detailed kinematics from animals in the wild is a holy grail of biomechanics, and now Naoya Muramatsu and colleagues reveal the extraordinary observations that they have made with their new WildPose wildlife motion capture system in South Africa.
Interviews with Biologists @ 100 conference speakers

Explore our interviews with keynote speakers from the Biologists @ 100 conference, hosted to celebrate our publisher’s 100th anniversary, where we discuss climate change and biodiversity with Hans-Otto Pörtner and Jane Francis, health and disease with Charles Swanton and Sadaf Farooqi, and emerging technologies with Manu Prakash and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz.
Fast & Fair peer review

Our sister journal Biology Open has recently launched the next phase of their Fast & Fair peer review initiative: offering high-quality peer review within 7 working days. To learn more about BiO’s progress and future plans, read the Editorial by Daniel Gorelick, or visit the Fast & Fair peer review page.