Issues

Summary: Bird embryos detect the presence of predators while still in the egg; this environmental stressor affects early postnatal telomere length, linking prenatal conditions to future fitness.

Summary: Laboratory studies have shown that melatonin modulates migratory restlessness in passerine birds; however, nocturnal melatonin is lower in caged birds than in birds trapped while flying at night.

Summary: Retinal topography and opsin gene expression change during ontogeny of the spotted unicornfish, Naso brevirostris, with the largest changes occurring from the larval to the juvenile stage.

Summary: When exposed to continuous, sinusoidal mediolateral trunk perturbations, subjects choose to maintain a constant step width and reduce their body centre of mass excursions to maintain stability.

Summary: Application of a novel, high-resolution biologging tag (ITAG) to veined squid in an experimental environment enables development of techniques for classifying and quantifying short-term behavioral and long-term organismal activity patterns.

Summary: Similar to the patterns observed in larger animals, distal rat muscles favor economy and show limited fascicle strains across gaits and grades.

Summary: Mating behaviors and tail morphology are affected by elevated temperature in male Caenorhabditis elegans. Changes in somatic tissues result in the behavioral consequences that underlie male sterility at elevated temperature.

Summary: Intrinsically low metabolic rates increase survival and fitness of an amphibious fish when access to water is limited; there is no apparent cost when water is abundant.

Summary: Syntactic structures were found different in call sequences in aggressive and distress contexts of greater horseshoe bats with three machine learning models.

Highlighted Article: Koalas possess a unique morphology for a marsupial; examination of their locomotion is used to determine the extent to which they have converged with other arboreal mammals such as primates.

Summary: The extraordinary difference in lifespan between honey bee castes may be partially explained by oxidative damage as a result of the diet-induced increase in membrane polyunsaturated fatty acids in workers.

Summary: Aedes aegypti, a dangerous vector of disease, is capable of cold acclimation at least partly through mitigation of a cold-induced loss of ion balance.

Highlighted Article: A rare orb spider reels trapped prey in towards itself; its approach strategy shows that it can discriminate between heavy and light prey.

Summary: During locomotion, the turtle pectoral girdle rotates more than the pelvis. While pelvic girdle rotations are larger on land, the pectoral girdle rotates similarly during swimming and walking.

Summary: Hoplia argentea beetles are diffusely green as a result of the combination of a multilayered photonic structure and a filamentous pigmented layer that acts as a diffuser.

Summary: Five species of shrimps representing independent invasions of the anchialine ecosystem show wide variation in response to fluctuating salinity at the whole-animal, tissue and molecular level. Environmental adaptations to anchialine habitats may be divergent across both distantly and closely related taxa.

Summary: Glucagon causes hyperglycaemia in rainbow trout by increasing hepatic glucose production via activation of gluconeogenesis, and by decreasing glucose disposal via inhibition of glycogen synthesis and glycolysis.

Highlighted Article: Variable reliance on enzymatic pathways to ameliorate toxic levels of ammonia found within the intestinal lumen of fish during digestion is possibly due to the inconstant contribution of bacterial inhabitants.

Summary: Striped mice do not accumulate large fat stores before the dry season but mobilize existing stores at the onset of breeding. Variation in fat stores is not associated with disappearance risk.