Issues

Summary: Unpredictable environmental phenomena associated with climate change can be challenging to developing organisms, but developmental phenotypic plasticity may be key to their survival.

Summary: A non-lethal approach to detect an internal parasitic worm using environmental DNA extracted from fluids sampled from the fish host’s body cavity.

Summary: Relative to celestial cues, fruit flies select unpredictable flight headings and maintain them with gradually increasing fidelity. This may be a general dispersal strategy for animals with no target destination.

Summary: Drosophila melanogaster shows sexual dimorphism in the effect of developmental diet on adult foraging choice, and life-stage dependency of the effects of diet on lifespan.

Highlighted Article: The integration of field and laboratory experiments shows that a recent amphibian invader reduces phenotypic mismatch with the novel environment through physiological and behavioural responses across an unusually short time scale.

Summary: Ants adjust their cuticular hydrocarbon layer to humidity and temperature, thereby maintaining its functionality for waterproofing and communication. Varying and constant temperature regimes had different effects on hydrocarbon composition.

Highlighted Article: Infection with Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis causes significant mortality in amphibians not only via electrolyte imbalance, but also through increased water loss that is exacerbated by routine skin sloughing.

Summary: Honeybees can transfer visual information from a classical to an operant context and appetitive visual learning in honeybees is modulated by octopamine and dopamine.

Summary: Using spectrometry, photographic analysis of feather macrostructure and transmission electron microscopy, we detect a previously unappreciated role for macrostructure in explaining individual differences in structural plumage colour.

Summary: Supplementation of either vitamin E or corticosterone in the egg reduces body mass of gull hatchlings; combined administration of the two compounds nullifies their independent effects.

Summary: Three weeks of sucrose overfeeding affects histological organisation, UCP1 and noradrenaline immunoexpression, and stereological characteristics of rat brown adipose tissue in a way that is suggestive of thermogenic activation.

Summary: The first auditory data for a population of healthy wild odontocetes shows that belugas have sensitive hearing with limited hearing loss and thresholds that approach quiet ambient noise conditions.

Summary: Diel feeding and locomotion behaviours in sea cucumber are not controlled by water temperature in the short term.

Summary: In adult Zaprionus indianus in wet or dry seasons, different heat or humidity acclimation conditions have resulted in significant changes in the levels of body lipids in order to cope with starvation stress.

Summary: A simple model of jumping mechanics is used to show that domestic dogs use complex anticipatory control to systematically choose jump trajectories close to those that minimise mechanical energy.

Highlighted Article: Human lumbar lordosis helps balance our bipedal trunk but also plays an important role in attenuating shocks transmitted through the spine during high-impact activities such as running.