Issues

Summary: Physiological responses associated with stable temperatures are distinct from those in thermally variable environments and we need to understand these differences to truly predict how animals will respond to climate change.

Summary: An overview of the critical elements underpinning the benefits of fluctuating thermal regimes in insects.

Highlighted Article: Halteres are specialized mechanosensors used to detect body rotations in flying flies. Responses to sudden free falls in standing flies show that halteres can also sense gravity.

Summary: Red-winged blackbirds deposit docosahexaenoic acid in their brains earlier in development than other altricial birds. This may derive from their habit of feeding in aquatic ecosystems during the breeding season.

Summary: Success in self-righting freshwater turtles is determined primarily by the velocity of the attempt and the moment exerted by the head during self-righting efforts.

Summary: In vivo recordings of gut oxygen uptake in a teleost fish demonstrate a high metabolic sensitivity to an acute temperature increase, as well as the metabolic responses to stress.

Summary: Calculation of the respiratory exchange ratio from rates of both oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide emission avoids underestimation of metabolic rate in discontinuous breathers.

Highlighted Article: Skin glands of Amphiuma tridactylum release secretions effective against the growth of the chytrid fungal pathogens Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans and may perform specialized functions related to reproduction.

Summary: Exposure of juvenile American alligators to 12‰ saltwater significantly elevated androgens, progestogens and estrogens while reducing angiotensin II. Blood biochemistry parameters, diagnostic of impaired liver and kidney function, were elevated.

Summary: In the absence of external orientation cues, leaf-cutting ants show an innate turning preference to the left. This bias can cause a looping pattern to enable ants to find their way back to a lost trail or nest site.

Summary: Dynamics of ejaculate release may influence the role of seminal fluid in competitive contexts. In the black goby, where interaction between rival ejaculates is reduced, its function differs depending on male mating tactics.

Summary: Metabolism evolved associated with both spatial and temporal components of habitat usage in a radiation of lizards with remarkable ecological diversification.

Summary: Honey bee flight induces oxidative damage and reveals a mechanism by which behavior can damage a cell.

Summary: The Lippia alba essential oil and its components affect behavior in multiple organisms; they block synaptic transmission in Drosophila by reducing presynaptic Ca²⁺ influx and transmitter release.

Summary: Wasps responded flexibly to varying reward conditions by maximising intake rate at unlimited flow and switching to the optimisation of foraging efficiency when the intake rate could not be enhanced due to a limited flow rate.

Summary: Dogs and cats offered foods with different macronutrient composition, but equivalent palatability, make food choices based on species, age and body composition, and concentrations of circulating metabolites reflect food choices.

Summary: A novel automated training paradigm that reliably elicits social calls from isolated bats and tracks their ability to adjust call features demonstrates vocal plasticity and usage learning in bats.

Summary: The sexually selected 9 kHz wing trill of male Allen's hummingbirds is substantially louder in maneuvers than in rectilinear flight, and appears to be produced in supination.

Editor's Choice: Hunting archerfish use information sampled in less than 100 ms to assess the initial height of ballistically falling prey.

Editor's Choice: Archerfish gauge initial height of falling prey in less than 100 ms without access to binocular or accommodation-related cues and with no prior information on prey size and background distance.

Summary: Fin activity changes with swimming speed and orientation in squid, resulting in the production of different vortex wake flows.

Summary: Nest temperatures in the urban landscape increase embryo developmental rate but reduce egg survival in lizards.

Summary: The contractile properties of a bat wing muscle are less thermally dependent than those of other studied animals, which may help maintain muscle function during flight in thermally variable environments.

Summary: Time to recovery from an electroconvulsive shock can be modulated by levels of protein kinase G expression in Drosophila melanogaster.

Highlighted Article: Raptors from Accipitriformes family differ in the shape of their binocular field according to their foraging tactics.

Summary: Visual PER conditioning in bees is difficult and less reliable than olfactory learning; stimulus length and visual angle limit the learning performance of bees during PER conditioning.

Summary: These data show that honey bee queens have excellent olfactory learning and long-term memory.

Summary: Heat hardening may be augmented by physiological regulators within and across generations, with variable effects on thermal tolerance.

Summary: Chronic hypoxia exposure in a weakly electric fish increases aspects of aerobic performance and mitigates potentially limiting effects of hypoxia on swimming and signalling at aerobically demanding swim speeds.

Summary: Discrimination of floral-fragrance isomers by bees is difficult, even under learning protocols that enhance discrimination; thus, isomers may not necessarily enhance plant odor diversity for pollinators.

Summary: Using a combination of imaging and behavioural experiments, testing visual detection via two photic behaviours, the authors show that the sea urchin Diadema africanum has low resolution vision.