Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: In ants, only 10% of the colony goes outside to collect food (illustrated here in Rhytidoponera sp). These ants are called foragers and are usually old and lean. Their younger counterparts are more corpulent and are engaged in nest work. Dussutour et al. (pp. 824-833) used experimental manipulation of colony demography and showed that fat content, and not age, is a good predictor of tolerance to nutritional stress. These results have considerable implications for our understanding of the population dynamics of social insects under adverse nutritional conditions, such as colony collapse disorder.
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INSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
How to measure color using spectrometers and calibrated photographs
Summary: The measurement of light and color has become easier over the past 20 years, but remains conceptually subtle. This Commentary addresses both conceptual and technical issues to help biologists measure light and color in their research.
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Intestinal paracellular absorption is necessary to support the sugar oxidation cascade in nectarivorous bats
Highlighted Article: Passive paracellular absorption of glucose is extensive in nectarivorous bats and necessary to support high glucose fluxes hypothesized for the sugar oxidation cascade.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Neural and neuroendocrine processing of a non-photic cue in an opportunistically breeding songbird
Summary: Social stimulation in male zebra finches increases hypothalamic activity and reproductive behaviors while not activating expression of hormones in the reproductive axis.
Salt preferences of honey bee water foragers
Summary: Individual salt preferences of honey bee water foragers were not known. Using the proboscis extension reflex response, we found significant preferences for specific concentrations of Na, Mg, K and phosphate salts.
Dose-dependent fluoxetine effects on boldness in male Siamese fighting fish
Highlighted Article: Multiple assays show that fluoxetine alters boldness on multiple levels and over time in male Siamese fighting fish. This altered boldness could generate negative fitness consequences.
Limits to sustained energy intake. XXIII. Does heat dissipation capacity limit the energy budget of lactating bank voles?
Summary: Fur removal increases both energy budget and reproductive output at peak lactation in a non-laboratory rodent, the bank vole, supporting the heat dissipation limit theory.
A flavanoid component of chocolate quickly reverses an imposed memory deficit
Summary: A naturally occurring substance (flavanol epicatechin, contained in chocolate) can immediately reverse a behavioural state whose phenotype prevents learning and memory formation.
Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous
Highlighted Article: More fat, live longer: positive association between fat content and lifespan in ants.
Gene expression and adaptive evolution of ZBED1 in the hibernating greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)
Summary: Expression and adaptive evolution of the cell proliferation-related transcription factor ZBED1 in the horseshoe bat shows that it has a potential role in hibernation.
Expectancy and conditioned hearing levels in the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
Summary: Dolphin hearing sensation levels, measured just before a loud sound, dampen more when the animal does not know when the loud sound will arrive than when the arrival time is fixed and predictable.
Maximum-speed curve-running biomechanics of sprinters with and without unilateral leg amputations
Highlighted Article: Sprinters with a unilateral leg amputation run slower on curves with their affected leg on the inside, compared with curves with the affected leg on the outside.
Seasonal and geographical variation in heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity in a passerine bird
Summary: Heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity in a passerine bird varies among populations, with individuals at a hot arid site showing significant seasonal acclimatisation.
The implications of reduced metabolic rate in resource-limited corals
Summary: Starved of food and light, corals can reduce their metabolism, lose biomass and maintain skeletogenesis; this strategy can be explained by the dynamics of structural and reserve biomass.
Biomechanical control of vocal plasticity in an echolocating bat
Summary: Bats are capable of adjusting their vocal tract to shape the spectral structure of their echolocation calls in response to interfering noise.
The role of an ancestral hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated K+ channel in branchial acid-base regulation in the green crab, Carcinus maenas
Summary: The present study is the first to describe a highly conserved HCN-like potassium channel to be involved in acid-base and ammonia regulation in an invertebrate branchial epithelium.
Temperature-dependent benefits of bacterial exposure in embryonic development of Daphnia magna resting eggs
Summary: The presence of bacteria increases successful development of Daphnia magna resting eggs at an elevated temperature.
Announcing the 2024 JEB Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist and winner
Every year JEB celebrates early-career researchers through the Outstanding Paper Prize. We recognise the shortlisted ECRS that contributed to 11 remarkable studies published in 2024 and congratulate the winner, Elise Laetz, from University of Groningen. See how else JEB supports and promotes ECRs.
Inside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with Hans-Otto Pörtner
During the past two decades, Hans-Otto Pörtner has steered climate change policy as a co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II. He tells us about the experience in this Perspective.
Photosynthesis turns symbiotic sea anemone's tentacles toward sun
Snakelocks sea anemones point their tentacles, packed with symbiotic algae, toward the sun so their lodgers can photosynthesize, and now Vengamanaidu Modepalli & colleagues have discovered that photosynthesis by the algae guides their host's tentacles towards the sun.
History of our journals
As our publisher, The Company of Biologists, turns 100 years old, read about JEB’s history and explore the journey of each of our sister journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open.
