Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: A north Atlantic killer whale (Orcinus orca) breaking the surface to breathe, replenishing its oxygen stores. Because cetaceans spend most of their lifetime underwater, respiration rate has been used as an indicator of metabolic rate, discounting potential respiration-by-respiration variation in oxygen uptake. Roos et al. (pp. 2066-2077) investigated the significance of respiration timing, in addition to rate, in estimating free-ranging cetaceans' energetics. They found that accounting for respiration timing, and therefore respiration-by-respiration variation in oxygen uptake, is crucial and will lead to more consistent predictions of cetacean metabolic rate than using respiration rate alone. Photo credit: Marjoleine M. H. Roos.
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INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
OBITUARY
REVIEW
The temperature dependence of electrical excitability in fish hearts
Summary: At the extremes of environmental temperature, electrical excitability of the heart and other excitable tissues may set limits to temperature tolerance of fishes and other ectotherms.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Lubricating the swordfish head
Highlighted Article: A newly discovered organ in the swordfish head, consisting of an oil-producing gland connected to capillaries with oil-excreting pores in the skin, may reduce streamwise friction drag and increase swimming efficiency.
Tide-related biological rhythm in the oxygen consumption rate of ghost shrimp (Neotrypaea uncinata)
Summary: Oxygen consumption rate of the ghost shrimp Neotrypaea uncinata fluctuates with a period similar to that of the local semidiurnal tidal cycle.
Incubation temperature causes skewed sex ratios in a precocial bird
Summary: Egg incubation may present an opportunity for sex ratio manipulation in birds.
Plasticity of immunity in response to eating
Summary: Aspects of immunity can increase nearly 50% during digestion of a meal in snakes; thus, immune up-regulation may contribute to the energetic cost of digestion (specific dynamic action, SDA).
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Eating increases oxidative damage in a reptile
Summary: Consuming and digesting a meal affects oxidative physiology to a surprising degree, and animals that consume large or meat-based meals may be particularly susceptible to increases in oxidative damage.
Altitude matters: differences in cardiovascular and respiratory responses to hypoxia in bar-headed geese reared at high and low altitudes
Highlighted Article: When exposed to progressive hypoxia, bar-headed geese reared at altitude exhibit a reduced metabolism and modestly increased ventilatory response, and also initiated cardiac responses earlier than geese reared at low altitude.
Impact of nest sanitation on the immune system of parents and nestlings in a passerine bird
Summary: Nest sanitation primes the adaptive immune response of adult birds, but not necessarily the immune response of their nestlings; adult constitutive immune response also decreases throughout nestling rearing.
Embryonic common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) preferentially regulate intracellular tissue pH during acid–base challenges
Summary: Embryonic turtles preferentially regulate tissue pH in the absence of blood pH regulation during acid–base disturbances. This pattern of acid–base regulation has never been observed before in amniotes.
Control of lung ventilation following overwintering conditions in bullfrogs, Lithobates catesbeianus
Summary: Following ventilatory inactivity during winter submergence, bullfrogs can match breathing to metabolism and increase ventilation during hypoxia, but have reduced responses to hypercarbia when acutely transitioned to a warm-terrestrial environment.
Jumping mechanisms and performance in beetles. I. Flea beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Alticini)
Highlighted Article: Flea beetles use a resilin-based structure as an elastic energy store for the catapult jumping mechanism.
Physiological responses to hypersalinity correspond to nursery ground usage in two inshore shark species (Mustelus antarcticus and Galeorhinus galeus)
Summary: In response to an environmentally relevant hypersaline event, juvenile school and gummy sharks both show signs of stress; however, the osmoregulatory and cellular effects are greater in gummy sharks.
A role for acoustic distortion in novel rapid frequency modulation behaviour in free-flying male mosquitoes
Summary: Female mosquito flight tones elicit a novel, stereotypical, auditory behaviour from male mosquitoes, although the male hearing organ is actually tuned to the frequency difference between male and female flight tones.
A biorobotic model of the suction-feeding system in largemouth bass: the roles of motor program speed and hyoid kinematics
Summary: Experiments using a biorobotic model of the suction feeding system of ray-finned fishes reveal that motor program speed and kinematic timing of key musculoskeletal components affect subambient pressure generation.
The ability to survive intracellular freezing in nematodes is related to the pattern and distribution of ice formed
Summary: Nematodes that survive intracellular freezing have small, uniform ice spaces, whereas the ice spaces of poor survivors vary more, with large spaces that may cause cellular damage.
The significance of respiration timing in the energetics estimates of free-ranging killer whales (Orcinus orca)
Highlighted Article: Longitudinal observations of respiration times and underwater activity level indicate that consideration of respiration timing, in addition to respiration rate, is critical for estimating metabolic rates of free-ranging cetaceans.
CORRESPONDENCE
CORRECTION
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.
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.