Issues

Highlighted Article: Investigation of a highly modified and previously undescribed fast-start of a larval coral-reef fish, which captures evasive copepod prey as early as 1 day after hatching.

Summary: A new, practicable, low-cost cage system for effectively housing small bee colonies to enable investigation of physical conditions, biological factors and environmental contaminants on honey bee responses.

Summary: Fifteen generations of artificial selection for long limb bones in mice substantially increased bone stiffness and brittleness, suggesting bone growth rates can significantly impact bone material properties.

Summary: Investigation of cranial kinesis in the miniaturised lizard Ablepharus kitaibelii provides the first experimental evidence for mesokinesis in a member of the Scincidae.

Summary: Honey bee workers raised in small social groups have higher sucrose responsiveness, worse discrimination performance and lower levels of dopamine than bees raised with more con-specifics.

Summary: Novel evidence that isometric and dynamic measures of neuromuscular fatigue following cycling at different intensities are not interchangeable because they do not share the same physiological mechanisms.

Summary: The swamp eel – an obligate air-breathing fish from South East Asia – can completely restore extracellular pH within days of exposure to hypercapnia and the kidneys play an important role in this response.

Summary: Some neuroendocrine hormones and biogenic amines may regulate the mRNA abundance of ammonia transporter in shrimp gills under ammonia-N stress, and 20 mg l⁻¹ ammonia-N causes severe damage to the hepatopancreas.

Summary: A novel photogrammetry method to reconstruct the surface geometry of flying birds is presented and used to analyse the gliding flight of a barn owl and peregrine falcon.

Highlighted Article: Cottonmouth snakes residing on islands without a permanent source of fresh water are frequently dehydrated, depend on fresh water from rainfall and express drinking responses different from those of mainland conspecifics.

Summary: Evaluation of the visual identification of rivals and prey by two salticid spider species under progressively lower light levels reveals a visual capacity comparable to that of nocturnal spiders.

Summary: Among nine weevil populations representing five species from the sub-Antarctic, acclimation responses of locomotion thermal performance curves typically accord with the warmer is better (or thermodynamic effects) hypothesis.

Highlighted Article: Unlike insects inhabiting less-complex landscapes, paper wasps invest more time in familiarising themselves with the landscape before they begin foraging for food, enabling them to increase foraging gain with reduced effort.

Summary: Stiffness gradients measured along the elements of a parasitic wasp ovipositor elucidate a possible steering mechanism used during probing.

Summary: Autonomic regulation allows rainbow trout to achieve their maximal cardiac and whole-organism thermal tolerance during acute warming to extreme temperatures.

Summary: The metabolic cost of movement is fixed within individuals, but differences between individuals mean that movement affects energy budgets differentially, and fish with a high cost may alter dispersal patterns.

Summary: Comparisons between feeding and locomotor systems reveal how selection deploys similar musculoskeletal components to meet differing performance criteria. Across tetrapods, excursions in limb joints are greater and more evolutionarily labile compared with jaw-joint movements.

Summary: The hexapod Podura aquatica possesses at least two visual pigments and its polarization sensitivity functions in the shorter, blue spectral range following the tendency of polarotactic aquatic insects.

Summary: Mice with a small deletion in the titin gene TTN exhibit severe thermoregulatory deficiencies and have lower metabolic rates than other size-matched rodents.

Summary: Induced leg-length asymmetry demonstrates that peripheral musculoskeletal structures, represented here by stance-phase joint mechanics, are likely targets of control during human walking as opposed to the center of mass.

Highlighted Article: On rough terrain, humans do not choose their walking speed based solely on metabolic energy minimization.

Summary: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia constitutes a major component of heart rate variability (HRV) in remotely monitored rattlesnakes. Detection of HRV is posited as a reliable indicator of recovery from trauma in animals.