Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: The paired Johnston's organs of male mosquitoes, spherical capsules at the base of feather-like antennae (pictured), are the most complex auditory organs yet found in insects. Each contains about 15,000 sensory neurons grouped into functional pairs or triplets. Rotating the vector of the sound wave around the mosquito's antenna, Lapshin and Vorontsov (jeb208785) measured the properties of individual sensory units. Within a group, neurons respond to opposite directions of the sound wave and are tuned to different frequencies. Together with high sensitivity, the diversity of individual properties of units allows the production of complex auditory behaviors. Photo credit: Dmitry Vorontsov.
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INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
A mobility-based classification of closed kinematic chains in biomechanics and implications for motor control
Summary: Using examples of biomechanical systems from fishes, birds and humans, this Commentary shows how mechanical linkages can be created or modified dynamically during behaviors in order to improve motor control.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Huffin’ and puffin: seabirds use large bills to dissipate heat from energetically demanding flight
Highlighted Article: Tufted puffins have high flight costs. Infrared imaging and heat exchange calculations suggest that they use their large bills to dissipate excess metabolic heat after flying.
Passive muscle tension increases in proportion to intramuscular fluid volume
Summary: Passive tension in skeletal muscle increases in proportion to tissue fluid volume, suggesting that natural fluctuations in water content may influence muscle performance in vivo.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
A quick tongue: older honey bees dip nectar faster to compensate for mouthpart structure deterioration
Highlighted Article: Average length of the honey bee glossal setae decreases with age but nectar intake rate remains constant through behavioral compensation, in which nectar dipping rate is increased.
Environmental entrainment demonstrates natural circadian rhythmicity in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis
Summary: The subtidal anemone Nematostella vectensis exhibits strong circadian behavioral rhythms following entrainment in natural conditions. Corresponding transcriptional rhythms suggest that solar radiation drives physiological cycles in this sediment-dwelling animal.
Cardiac remodeling in response to embryonic crude oil exposure involves unconventional NKX family members and innate immunity genes
Summary: RNA sequencing reveals changes in gene expression linked to altered heart structure in juvenile fish as a consequence of embryonic exposure to low, environmentally realistic levels of crude oil.
How do red-eyed treefrog embryos sense motion in predator attacks? Assessing the role of vestibular mechanoreception
Highlighted Article: Red-eyed treefrogs' hatching responses to predator attacks, vibration playbacks and egg jiggling appear when vestibular function develops. Ear development may be a key limiting factor in the onset of mechanosensory-cued hatching.
Red coloration varies with dietary carotenoid access and nutritional condition in kittiwakes
Summary: The main mechanism limiting the full expression of carotenoid-based color signals varies with environmental conditions in a red-colored seabird.
Future ocean warming may prove beneficial for the northern population of European seabass, but ocean acidification will not
Summary: Heart mitochondria of juvenile European sea bass are impaired by acute warming, but seem to benefit from conditioning to warmer temperatures; they are only marginally impacted by ocean acidification.
Bilateral auditory processing studied by selective cold-deactivation of cricket hearing organs
Summary: Peltier devices selectively cold-block the activity of cricket ears, and allow the study of bilateral auditory processing and the effect of reciprocal inhibition in central auditory neurons.
Vision in the snapping shrimp Alpheus heterochaelis
Summary: Morphological, physiological and behavioral approaches demonstrate for the first time that the eyes of snapping shrimp provide spatial vision.
Embryonic developmental oxygen preconditions cardiovascular functional response to acute hypoxic exposure and maximal β-adrenergic stimulation of anesthetized juvenile American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
Summary: Juvenile alligators that experienced embryonic hypoxia have a faster rate of ventricular relaxation, greater left ventricle stroke volume and greater cardiac power following β-adrenergic stimulation, compared with juvenile alligators that did not experience embryonic hypoxia.
Mechanical and optical properties of the femoral chordotonal organ in beetles (Coleoptera)
Summary: Unique among insects, the femoral chordotonal organs in many beetles have a special design of the apodeme for amplification of dynamic signals.
Honeybees generalize among pollen scents from plants flowering in the same seasonal period
Summary: The proboscis extension response of honey bees was conditioned using different pollen scents, then tested with novel pollen scents. Honey bees generalized the pollen scents from plants that share the same flowering period.
Thoracic adaptations for ventilation during locomotion in humans and other mammals
Highlighted Article: Experimental and comparative data show that humans and other animals selected for long-distance running convergently evolved adaptations to augment diaphragmatic breathing with thoracic movements.
Meat ants cut more trail shortcuts when facing long detours
Summary: Ant colonies adjust their trail-clearing effort context dependently by preferentially creating shortcuts when alternative detours are long.
C-Type allatostatin and its putative receptor from the mud crab serve an inhibitory role in ovarian development
Summary: C-type allatostatin and its receptor are involved in the regulation of ovarian development in Scylla paramamosain, possibly by directly inhibiting the uptake of yolk by oocytes and obstructing oocyte growth.
Effects of FABP knockdown on flight performance of the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria
Summary: Fatty acid binding protein (FABP) is an essential element of skeletal muscle energy metabolism in vivo; its knockdown in locust flight muscle prevents extended flight activity.
Object colours, material properties and animal signals
Summary: A measure of colour based on the object colour solid, which is mostly independent of species, gives an insight into the psychology of animal signals.
Developmental delay in shivering limits thermogenic capacity in juvenile high-altitude deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus)
Summary: Postnatal development of shivering thermogenesis is initially delayed in high-altitude deer mice; the highly aerobic muscle phenotype and superior thermogenic capacity characteristic of adults does not mature until after weaning.
Directional and frequency characteristics of auditory neurons in Culex male mosquitoes
Summary: In mosquitoes, paired/triplet auditory neurons, responding to opposite directions of the sound wave and tuned to different frequencies, occur in every angular sector of the Johnston's organ, allowing the production of complex auditory behaviors.
In the field: an interview with Harald Wolf
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In our new Conversation, Harald Wolf talks about his fieldwork experiences working with desert ants in Tunisia to understand their navigation.
Propose a new Workshop
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Our Workshops bring together leading experts and early-career researchers from a range of scientific backgrounds. Applications are now open to propose Workshops for 2024, one of which will be held in a Global South country.
Julian Dow steps down and John Terblanche joins the JEB team
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After 15 years with the journal, Julian Dow from University of Glasgow, UK, is stepping down as a Monitoring Editor. We wish Julian all the best for the future and welcome John Terblanche, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, who is joining the team. Julian talks about his long association with The Company of Biologists and the journal and John tells us about his life and career in this News article.
The capture of crude oil droplets by filter feeders at high and low Reynolds numbers
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Researchers from the University of Montreal, Canada, reveal how tiny filter feeding barnacles and Daphnia entrap and consume minute droplets of crude oil, introducing the pollutant at the bottom of the food chain.
Patterns and processes in amphibious fish
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In their Review, Keegan Lutek, Cassandra Donatelli and Emily Standen discuss the biomechanics and neural control of terrestrial locomotion in amphibious fish. They explore how locomotor mode depends on body shape, physical constraints and phylogeny.