Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: A short-beaked echidna, Tachyglossus aculeatus acanthion, from south-west Western Australia. This monotreme has a unique morphology, a highly specialised myrmecophagous diet and an unusual mode of locomotion. Clemente et al. (pp. 3271–3283) examined the biomechanics, activity and ecology of short-beaked echidnas in their natural environment. Despite a low stride length and frequency, echidnas excavate substitutional areas of soil as a result of the considerable periods of time they spend digging. Because of their broad distribution and relative abundance compared with other mammalian bioturbators in Australia, echidnas presumably have an important ecosystem function. Photo credit: Christine Cooper.
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INSIDE JEB
REVIEWS
Current versus future reproduction and longevity: a re-evaluation of predictions and mechanisms
Summary: This paper critically reviews the effects and physiological mechanisms that reproduction could have on bioenergetic capacity to better understand how a reproductive event could affect future reproduction and/or survival.
Hemoglobin–oxygen affinity in high-altitude vertebrates: is there evidence for an adaptive trend?
Summary: Evolved changes in hemoglobin–oxygen affinity in high-altitude birds and mammals provide striking examples of convergent biochemical adaptation.
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Amphibious fish jump better on land after acclimation to a terrestrial environment
Summary: Reversible changes to the oxidative skeletal muscle of the amphibious fish Kryptolebias marmoratus out of water enhance terrestrial locomotory performance, even in the absence of exercise training.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Effects of elevated pCO2 and feeding on net calcification and energy budget of the Mediterranean cold-water coral Madrepora oculata
Summary: Madrepora oculata show a threshold for calcification at an Ωa of 0.92 and there is no mitigating effect at increasing pCO2 due to more food supplied.
Feeding through your gills and turning a toxicant into a resource: how the dogfish shark scavenges ammonia from its environment
Highlighted Article: Elasmobranchs, which are nitrogen-limited in nature, take up the toxicant ammonia across their gills from environmentally realistic levels in seawater, using it to make urea, an essential osmolyte.
Introducing a novel mechanism to control heart rate in the ancestral Pacific hagfish
Summary: A novel bicarbonate-stimulated, soluble adenylyl cyclase-mediated mechanism to control heart rate in Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii), together with catecholamine control, explains tachycardia during recovery from anoxia.
Effects of saturation deficit on desiccation resistance and water balance in seasonal populations of the tropical drosophilid Zaprionus indianus
Summary: The tropical drosophilid Z. indianus shows seasonal plasticity for desiccation resistance and a lower rate of water loss in simulated summer versus rainy season conditions, similar to changes exhibited by seasonal wild-caught flies.
Better late than never: effective air-borne hearing of toads delayed by late maturation of the tympanic middle ear structures
Summary: Late maturation of tympanic middle ear structures in toads causes reduced sensitivity to sounds in free-living, post-metamorphic animals.
Echolocation behavior in big brown bats is not impaired after intense broadband noise exposures
Summary: Intense broadband noise exposure does not affect echolocation behavior of big brown bats flying in dense acoustic clutter.
Effects of series elastic compliance on muscle force summation and the rate of force rise
Summary: Muscle stretch at activation onset, simulating a state of reduced in-series compliance, enhanced the rate of force rise and force summation. Subtle differences in muscle–tendon interaction likely explain enhanced performance.
The private life of echidnas: using accelerometry and GPS to examine field biomechanics and assess the ecological impact of a widespread, semi-fossorial monotreme
Highlighted Article: The locomotor biomechanics of wild, free-living echidnas is assessed using accelerometers and GPS units.
The oxidative debt of fasting: evidence for short- to medium-term costs of advanced fasting in adult king penguins
Summary: Fasting induces a transitory exposure to oxidative stress, and effort to recover in body mass after an advanced fasting period may be a neglected carryover cost of fasting in king penguins.
Functional relevance of acoustic tracheal design in directional hearing in crickets
Summary: Crickets use a modified tracheal system that couples their two ears for sound localization. Yet, the most elaborate of these systems does not provide better directionality compared with more simple forms.
Preferred gait and walk–run transition speeds in ostriches measured using GPS-IMU sensors
Highlighted Article: Ostriches moving freely overground prefer to walk very slowly and run over a broad range of speeds, with gait transitions at slower relative speeds than humans.
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.