Issues

Summary: Studying metabolic rate through a quantitative genetics approach provides a formal, predictive and comparative framework for understanding variation in metabolic rate.

Summary: This Review discusses the solutions that developing larval fish have evolved to the challenges of swimming in the intermediate Reynolds number regime.

Summary: The use of passive energy recapture is widespread among medusae and its extent is regulated primarily through the pause duration between swimming cycles.

Summary: Comparison of sounds and morphology combined with current data on Balistidae phylogeny support the suggestion that all the family members should be capable of sound production using their pectoral fins.

Highlighted Article: During an epic winter journey in the Ross Sea, we discovered emperor penguins diving near Cape Washington at night; if breeding males do this too, feeding before egg laying will help them endure the subsequent 65 day incubation of the egg.

Summary: An additional hypothesis to protein structure–function relationships for the increase in arterial P_CO2 and decline in blood pH with increases in body temperature of ectotherms.

Editors’ Choice: Cuttlefish exhibit jet-propulsed escape responses adapted to the hydrodynamic signatures generated by predators in the initial approach phase of an attack.

Highlighted Article: Clarification of the potential of visual tuning in Atlantic cod through differential opsin usage during changes in environmental light, with reference to the influence of developmental pre-programming and population ecotypes.

Summary: In the biparental California mouse, an environmental challenge affects metabolically important physiological, morphological and behavioral measures in males, but these effects do not differ between non-reproductive males and fathers.

Summary: Claudin-10 protein isoforms, which form putative cation pores, change gene expression with salinity acclimation and alter ion selectivity of the paracellular pathway in salt-secreting epithelia of euryhaline mummichogs (Fundulus heteroclitus).

Summary: The Svalbard ptarmigan, much like low-latitude birds but unlike sympatric homeotherms, does not employ extensive local heterothermy for cold protection. Instead, these birds maintain prime-quality insulation – a feature shared with many other High-Arctic homeotherms.

Summary: Larger, but mechanically similar, respiratory systems enable the slow, deep breathing pattern of geese that reside (Andean geese) or migrate (bar-headed geese) at high altitude compared with low-altitude resident species (barnacle geese).

Summary: Drosophila brain development is sensitive to environmental stimuli; the development of the mushroom bodies and associative learning are sensitive to heat stress but not larval density and adult living conditions.

Summary: Arterialization of venous blood does not account for maintenance of aortic oxygenation during lung collapse in deep-diving sea lions.

Summary: Tropical arboreal ants routinely adhere to superheated tree branches. Adhesive performance varies interspecifically, but in many cases corresponds to the average daily surface temperature of canopy branches.

Summary: Routine flight modes seem to have shaped the energetic requirements of birds sufficiently to be anatomically detected at the comparative level.

Summary: Interspecific differences exist in pectoral fin ray flexural stiffness. The spatial distribution of stiffness across the fin surface enables an advantageous bending regime for propulsion in each species.

Summary: Porpoise dive heart rates are influenced by exercise and expectations, yet there is no increase in heart rate associated with prey capture sprints.

Summary: Large-scale path recordings combined with high-speed recordings at key locations suggest that path integration modulates speed along the homing path in desert ants.

Summary: Thermoregulation during torpor at low temperatures is energetically expensive and results in a considerable but disproportionate increase in heart rate and metabolism.

Summary: Crawling long distances as a result of disorientation during the sea turtle hatchling frenzy has little impact on physiology but the turtles rest frequently, thus significantly extending their time on the beach.