Issues

Summary: Central pattern generation is a concept conventionally applied to neural control of simple, innate rhythmic movements. Here, I discuss how it can be applied to the control of complex, non-rhythmic, learned stereotypical activity sequences.

Summary: Terrestrial exercise training improves the locomotor performance of amphibious fishes on land as a result of skeletal muscle remodeling, which may enhance foraging ability, predator avoidance and dispersal overland.

Summary: Resistance of spider silk to bacterial degradation is likely due to bacteriostatic rather than antibacterial mechanisms as nitrogen is made inaccessible.

Summary: Two mound-building termite species occupying the same locale are morphologically and behaviourally similar but create different macro-scale structures, and demonstrate this differential building behaviour under low-humidity conditions.

Summary: Apis mellifera honeybee hypopharyngeal gland secretions contain exosome-like vesicles, which contribute to their antibacterial and pro-regenerative activity.

Summary: During jumping locomotion, female peafowl rarely gaze at their landing spots and their eye movements are highly conjugate while shifting forward, suggesting that vision plays a critical role in locomotion that varies depending on the locomotor task.

Editors' Choice: Motion-sensing tags attached to baleen whales paired with unoccupied aerial system (drone) imagery demonstrate that while oscillatory stroking frequency decreases with size, absolute swimming speed remains consistent over an order of magnitude body mass range.

Summary: Our results provide evidence that autonomic changes may reflect important mechanisms in the etiology of cardiovascular diseases associated with exposure to chronic stress.

Summary: Joints and muscle groups in the human locomotor system alter their mechanical function to meet demands of the locomotor task being performed.

Summary: The aerobic exercise performance of bank voles during a swimming trial is suppressed by the glucocorticoid stress response, but artificial selection for high performance does not modify the blood corticosterone level.

Summary: Magnetic resonance imaging showed accumulation of the injected tracers in the kidney. The atrial wall of the Mytilus galloprovincialis could filtrate small molecules (<0.5 kDa), but not larger molecules.

Summary: The frequency of hand grasping across 17 strepsirrhine species increases with a swinging motion of the food, clarifying the role of food mobility in the evolution of grasping hands in primates.

Highlighted Article: Dive and foraging performance of immature king penguins was significantly decreased after their annual molt fast ashore, suggesting physiological constraints.

Highlighted Article: Quasinatural selection for reproduction under short photoperiods affects traits associated with reproductive diapause without altering the circadian rhythm, and induces divergence of SNPs associated with genes and pathways involved in diapause.

Highlighted Article: Bats rapidly recover from substantial disturbances to body orientation within one wingbeat, relying primarily upon inertial torques generated from left–right asymmetry in wingbeat kinematics.

Highlighted Article: Bats with suction cups on their wrists and feet perform specialized maneuvers to land in specialized roosts, furled leaf tubes, suggesting linkage between roosting ecology and landing mechanics in bats.

Summary: Experimental evidence shows that chemical cues relevant to reproductive behaviour in a songbird, the dark-eyed junco, are produced by bacteria associated with uropygial gland secretions.

Summary: Serotonergic and dopaminergic gene expression causally explains aspects of stickleback personality. Human pharmaceuticals make sticklebacks bolder, demonstrating consequences of human medical waste for wildlife.

Highlighted Article: The Saharan silver ant performs high-speed locomotion with a characteristic high stride frequency, achieved by a combination of short stance phases and fast leg swing movements.

Highlighted Article: Most bats both fly and echolocate; big brown bat pups attain adult-like echolocation behaviours before adult-like flight behaviours.

Summary: Physiological maturation in birds, prior to fledging may occur at the expense of telomere length when growth occurs under sub-optimal environmental conditions.

Highlighted Article: Manduca sexta is proposed as a new model to study the effects of imaginal disc damage on developmental timing. After disc damage, critical weight is altered although growth rate is not, and juvenile hormone appears uncoupled from critical mass.