Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: A Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly (Papilio xuthus) prepares to take flight. Because their eyes are sensitive to polarized light, the world probably looks rather different to these insects than it does to us. Stewart et al. (jeb191957) investigated the role polarization plays in motion vision, by measuring behavioural responses to moving images containing both polarization and intensity contrast. The butterflies perceive polarization as false brightness in this context, suggesting that the neural circuit responsible for visual motion detection contains just one polarization-sensitive channel. Photo credit: Kentaro Arikawa.
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Income and capital breeding in males: energetic and physiological limitations on male mating strategies
Summary: Capital- and income-breeding strategies can be applied to males, but factors shaping these strategies are different from those found in females.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Wing morphology, flight type and migration distance predict accumulated fuel load in birds
Summary: Fat reserves in birds accumulated prior to migration are optimised as a function of expected energy expenditure during migration, defined by an interplay between journey length and the energy efficiency of the flight apparatus (e.g. wing aspect ratio, flight type).
Determinants of optimal leg use strategy: horizontal to vertical transition in the parkour wall climb
Highlighted Article: The optimal transition from horizontal to vertical appears to be determined largely by a trade-off of positive and negative leg work that accomplishes the task with minimum overall work.
Identification of novel circadian transcripts in the zebrafish retina
Summary: Characterization of the day and night transcriptome of the adult zebrafish retina reveals novel circadian transcripts.
Cyclic nature of the REM sleep-like state in the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis
Summary: Evidence suggests that cephalopods possess a sleep-like state that resembles behaviorally the vertebrate rapid eye movement sleep (REMS)-like state.
Flight energetics, caste dimorphism and scaling properties in the bumblebee, Bombus impatiens
Summary: Comparing worker and queen bumblebees reveals how body size impacts flight energetics and muscle metabolism.
Measurement and modelling of primary sex ratios for species with temperature-dependent sex determination
Summary: A new model for estimating sex ratios from temperature traces for species with temperature-dependent sex determination.
An Ishihara-style test of animal colour vision
Editors' Choice: A new way to test animal colour vision based on methods to determine whether humans are ‘colour blind’, and a demonstration of how this method works with triggerfish.
Altered thermoregulation as a driver of host behaviour in glochidia-parasitised fish
Summary: Thermoregulation plays a fundamental, up to now neglected, role in the relationship of endangered affiliated mussels and their fish hosts.
Age-related responses to injury and repair in insect cuticle
Summary: Like humans/other animals, insects also suffer age-related declines. Older insects are more susceptible to injuries and less able to repair them than younger counterparts.
Developmental carryover effects of ocean warming and acidification in corals from a potential climate refugium, the Gulf of Aqaba
Summary: Exposing mature scleractinian corals to predicted next-century temperature and pH did not significantly alter parent or offspring physiology or recruitment success in a recognized coral climate refugium.
Monopolatic motion vision in the butterfly Papilio xuthus
Summary: By measuring butterflies' behavioural responses to moving images containing both polarization and intensity contrast, we infer the photoreceptors and early neural circuits involved in motion detection.
Deletion of a specific exon in the voltage-gated calcium channel gene cacophony disrupts locomotion in Drosophila larvae
Summary: The voltage-gated calcium channel gene cacophony encodes multiple alternatively spliced variants. CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing precisely eliminated a single cacophony exon in Drosophila, leading to larval crawling defects.
Using the reactive scope model to redefine social stress in fishes

In their Review, Katie Gilmour and colleagues redefine the ambiguous concept of social stress by using the reactive scope model as a framework to explain the divergent physiological phenotypes of dominant and subordinate fishes.
JEB grants to support junior faculty

Learn about the grants that we launched in 2023 to support junior faculty from two of our awardees: Erin Leonard, Early-Career Researcher (ECR) Visiting Fellowship recipient, and Pauline Fleischmann, Research Partnership Kickstart Travel Grant recipient. The next deadline to apply is 6 June 2025.
Thirteen-lined ground squirrels survive extraordinarily low blood oxygen

Brynne Duffy and colleagues reveal that thirteen-lined ground squirrels are true hypoxia champions surviving extreme low blood oxygen, down to just 34% oxygen, when they emerge briefly from hibernation.
The Company of Biologists Workshops

For the last 15 years, our publisher, The Company of Biologists, has provided an apt environment to inspire biology and support biologists through our Workshops series. Read about the evolution of the Workshop series and revisit JEB's experience with hosting the first Global South Workshop.
Fast & Fair peer review

Our sister journal Biology Open has recently launched the next phase of their Fast & Fair peer review initiative: offering high-quality peer review within 7 working days. To learn more about BiO’s progress and future plans, read the Editorial by Daniel Gorelick, or visit the Fast & Fair peer review page.