Issues

Summary: Hagfish traits such as immersive feeding and extended fasts have stimulated experimental research into their digestive and nutritive physiology, but methodological challenges and key knowledge gaps remain.

Summary: The first audiograms of auditory evoked potentials for any aquatic snake show that Stokes’s sea snake, Hydrophis stokesii, can detect low-frequency underwater sounds (40–600 Hz).

Highlighted Article: Characterization of molecular regulation of metabolic flexibility in a migratory bird across its annual cycle provides insight into how animals can respond to annual variation in energetic demands.

Summary: Cats compensate for unilaterally compromised tactile paw sensations by improving lateral balance and by shifting the body toward the anesthetized paws during the stance phase of split-belt locomotion.

Highlighted Article: An inadvertent evolutionary selection for rapid recovery from CO₂ exposure for nearly 40 years has resulted in fast and consistent locomotor recovery from anoxia in Drosophila melanogaster.

Summary: Hypoxia tolerance is a plastic trait in fish, and a putatively sensitive species can remodel its physiology and metabolism to effectively cope with diel cycling hypoxia.

Summary: Uncontrolled production of an immune mediator, PGE2, leads to fitness costs accompanying reduction in development and reproduction in insects.

Highlighted Article: Terrestrial slugs of the genus Limax exhibit negative phototaxis behaviour even if their eyes are removed, possibly by using their brain as a photosensor, which expresses several opsin mRNA species.

Highlighted Article: Free-falling locusts use several biomechanical mechanisms enabling them to control their body posture at impact. This ability allows them to quickly prepare for the next jump.

Summary: Eliminating the Achilles tendon does not affect the stretch–shortening cycle in rat soleus muscle.

Summary: Hypoxia exposure alters the relative contribution of peripheral and central factors to exercise-induced fatigue, and central fatigue may play a predominant role in the decline in exercise performance under hypoxia.

Summary: Birds provisioning offspring can either increase metabolic processes or reduce energy expenditure on maintenance. Here, a song bird is shown to do the latter, but only in the short term.

Summary: Reproducing females and developing embryos of the lizard species Podarcis muralis appear to be resilient, at least in the short term, to reduced oxygen availability at high elevations.

Summary: Hagfish exhibit increases in ventilation as a specific response to ammonia, showing that the response arose very early in vertebrate evolution.

Highlighted Article: In human walking, ground reaction forces are directed to a point above the center of mass to promote whole-body stability. This is also observed in camouflaged curb negotiation.

Summary: Fish larvae may independently adjust the direction and speed of their fast start escape response, a manoeuvre crucial for survival.

Summary: The thermal phenotypic plasticity of Drosophila suzukii in terms of locomotor activity and expression of clock genes is narrower than that of Drosophila melanogaster.

Highlighted Article: Using microscopy, we show how the zombie ant fungus (Ophiocordyceps kimflemingiae) alters the mandibular muscle of its host (Camponotus castaneus) during the death grip, a key behavior associated with transmission.

Summary: A change in rearing environment results in the establishment of a lab-bred Lymnaea stagnalis strain with an enhanced ability to form memory as well as heightened resilience to physiological stressors.

Summary: Bioinformatics, RNAi and behavioral assays reveal that plasticity in the regulatory relationships between transcription factors and target genes is associated with social behavior, social context and endocrine state.

Summary: The movement strategies of unimpaired adults when walking on uneven terrain change over time with longer exposure to the surface.

Highlighted Article: Saccular potential recordings reveal that the rostral horn-like extensions of the swim bladder in female plainfin midshipman enhance auditory sensitivity to sound pressure and higher frequencies.