Issues

Summary: Hybrid muscle fibers co-expressing multiple myosin heavy chain isoforms are common components of skeletal muscles. This Review examines the prevalence of these fibers and the conditions under which they occur.

Summary: Nitrite is a pervasive pollutant in aquatic habitats, which affects both heat tolerance and aerobic scope in juvenile European carp (Cyprinus carpio).

Summary: XROMM analysis shows that the ribs in birds move in a constrained, predictable way during breathing, which is important for modelling the evolution of avian ventilation and respiratory physiology.

Summary: Paired predator effluent and food odour exposure reveal that freshly collected, smart snails that experience a crayfish predator on an everyday basis are also capable of configural learning.

Summary: The digging forces generated by pocket gophers were successfully measured using a new ‘tunnel-tube’ apparatus and Fourier transforms.

Summary: Description of the Tapered Wings Logger (TWLogger), a new, low-cost, open-source, archival bio-logger that records high-resolution (e.g. 50 Hz) tri-axial accelerometry and magnetometry, temperature and GPS.

Summary: The difficulty of controlling odorant signals in the laboratory hinders efforts to probe how animals encode and respond to odors. Here, we present methods to deliver dynamic, reproducible odorants precisely.

Summary: This study presents an experimental validation of a recently developed method of reconstructing physical activity based on multivariate analyses of muscle attachments on bone surfaces.

Summary: Simulated triceps surae muscle or whole-body metabolic energy consumption is not different between midfoot/forefoot and rearfoot strikers.

Summary: Light responses from the unusual eyes on fan worm feeding tentacles reveal a high temporal resolution, broad dynamic range, and spectral tuning to blue-green light, making the eyes well suited for governing a startle response.

Summary: In grasshoppers, the localization of sounds with ambiguous or conflicting directional cues depends on the magnitude and temporal position of each cue. This gives insight into general principles of directional hearing.

Highlighted Article: An optimization model predicts body–load interactions that compare to experienced rural Vietnamese farmworkers carrying substantial loads suspended on flexible bamboo poles. A work-minimizing strategy indicates energy-saving gait adaptations.

Summary: Structural enrichment increases the survival success of hatchery salmon in the wild.

Summary: Cuticular hydrocarbons protect insects from desiccation and allow chemical communication, and contain both liquid and solid parts. This complex phase behaviour appears vital to ensure biological functioning.

Summary: Rasch models of performance in obstacle courses show that the ability of forest-dwelling bats to fly through vegetatively cluttered habitats is best predicted by wing loading and body mass.

Editors' Choice: Common bottlenose dolphins increase whistle amplitude as ambient noise increases, but not enough to maintain the same effective range in increasing noise and with a smaller degree of compensation for individually distinctive signature whistles compared with non-signature whistles.

Summary: Dopamine exerts its modulatory actions on the olfactory system through the Dop1 receptor and thus acts as a mediator of behavioral plasticity in insects.

Summary: Quantitative data on the usage of various attachment devices obtained from whole-animal experiments indicate complementary functionality of different tarsal and pretarsal structures in stick insects.

Summary: Micro-computed tomography slices and histology sections of an adult loris co-registered for simulation of nasal airflow reveal that olfactory and respiratory airflow are segregated, but some olfactory areas may be reduced as a result of the enlarged, convergent eyes in this primate.

Highlighted Article: Experiments in a tropical cockroach, Gromphadorinha coquereliana, show that cold stress does not cause lethal DNA damage, in comparison to freeze stress. Thus this species can be classified as moderately freezing tolerant.

Summary: A 20-amino-acid mixture can be both rewarding and punishing, suggesting that oppositely valenced parallel memories for it could be established in maggots.