Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: As the largest extant fish species, tropical whale sharks defy the general principle that size increases with latitude. This exceptionalism is likely enabled by bulk filtration of patchy, seasonally available zooplankton. Cade and colleagues (jeb224402) used multi-day accelerometer tags to compare the swimming effort expended by whale sharks during putative foraging and non-foraging periods. At the surface, whale sharks use high-amplitude, fast tail beats during low-speed, multi-hour foraging bouts, yet their large size suggests a low metabolic cost. This high foraging efficiency implies that disturbances during active feeding may have an outsized impact on the life history of this outsized animal. Photo credit: Simon Pierce.
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INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
REVIEW
Molecular mechanisms of biomineralization in marine invertebrates
Summary: Understanding how urchins, molluscs and corals extract calcium from seawater to make their skeletons, and the factors that affect this process, improve predictions on their future success under climate change.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Absolute ethanol intake predicts ethanol preference in Drosophila melanogaster
Summary: Preferential consumption of ethanol-containing medium can be established on base diets that elicit greater feeding, suggesting that a threshold of ethanol intake is required for developing ethanol preference.
Retinal slip compensation of pitch-constrained blue bottle flies flying in a flight mill
Summary: When flying in a flight mill, flies with constrained body pitch compensate external visual perturbations applied to their retinal slip by changing their flight speed.
Membrane peroxidation index and maximum lifespan are negatively correlated in fish of the genus Nothobranchius
Summary: Phospholid content and peroxidation index of cell membranes is lower in Nothobranchius fish species with a higher maximum lifespan potential, in accordance with the longevity–homeoviscous adaptation (LHA) theory of ageing.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Whale sharks increase swimming effort while filter feeding, but appear to maintain high foraging efficiencies
Summary: Tail beat kinematics and foraging behavior of filter feeding whale sharks off the Yucatán Peninsula indicate that stroke effort increases with filter feeding, particularly at the surface.
Floral vibrations by buzz-pollinating bees achieve higher frequency, velocity and acceleration than flight and defence vibrations
Summary: Despite being produced by the same set of muscles, the vibrations bumblebees produce during buzz-pollination, defensive buzzing and flight all significantly differ in their biomechanical properties.
Role of the gut microbiome in mediating standard metabolic rate after dietary shifts in the viviparous cockroach, Diploptera punctata
Summary: Dietary shifts resulted in differential emergences of microbial taxa in the gut microbiomes of Diploptera punctata, impacting microbial essential amino acid provisioning functions that may underlie differences in determined host metabolic phenotypes, measured as standard metabolic rate.
Secondary osteon structural heterogeneity between the cranial and caudal cortices of the proximal humerus in white-tailed deer
Summary: Cortical bone mineral content has a stronger impact on tissue stiffness than cortical bone structure (Haversian system and central canal size).
Terrestrial acclimation and exercise lead to bone functional response in Polypterus senegalus pectoral fins
Highlighted Article: When amphibious fish (Polypterus senegalus) spend a prolonged time on land, their fin bones change shape and composition in response to increased mechanical loading.
Fish embryo vulnerability to combined acidification and warming coincides with a low capacity for homeostatic regulation
Summary: The gastrulation period represents a critical transition from inherited (maternal) defenses to active homeostatic regulation, which facilitates enhanced resilience of later stages to environmental factors.
Thermo-TRPs and gut microbiota are involved in thermogenesis and energy metabolism during low temperature exposure of obese mice
Summary: Thermo-TRPs and gut microbiota are involved in attenuating diet-induced obesity during low temperature exposure in C57BL/6J mice.
Responses of activity rhythms to temperature cues evolve in Drosophila populations selected for divergent timing of eclosion
Summary: Selection for divergent phasing of eclosion rhythms of Drosophila melanogaster results in altered sensitivity of activity rhythms to temperature cues, highlighting common circadian clock organisational principles.
Eyelid squinting during food pecking in pigeons
Summary: Pecking pigeons do not fully close their eyes when their beak tip approaches a seed but instead narrow their eyelids to a slit, improving their vision by squinting.
Reduced exploration capacity despite brain volume increase in warm-acclimated common minnow
Highlighted Article: In fish, thermal metabolic compensation in response to warming under predicted climate change scenarios may alter brain morphology and cognition, potentially causing fitness impairment.
Androgenic modulation of extraordinary muscle speed creates a performance trade-off with endurance
Highlighted Article: Androgenic signalling boosts muscle twitch speed to support the production of elaborate display behaviour, triggering a trade-off with endurance. This encumbers display length, highlighting a performance cost of steroid action.
Body temperature stability in the whale shark, the world's largest fish
Highlighted Article: Whale sharks, the world's largest fish, can dive over 1000 m and have the advantage of maintaining relatively stable body temperatures because of their high thermal inertia.
Spectral sensitivity of cone vision in the diurnal murid Rhabdomys pumilio
Summary: The visual spectral sensitivity of a diurnal rodent, Rhabdomys pumilio, is biased against UV-A wavelengths thanks to lens filtering, but not cone spectral sensitivity.
The effect of ambient oxygen on the thermal performance of a cockroach, Nauphoeta cinerea
Summary: Oxygen availability does not explain moderate- to long-term thermal performance in Nauphoeta cinerea, which raises further questions about the generality of the OCLTT hypothesis.
CORRESPONDENCE
Using the reactive scope model to redefine social stress in fishes

In their Review, Katie Gilmour and colleagues redefine the ambiguous concept of social stress by using the reactive scope model as a framework to explain the divergent physiological phenotypes of dominant and subordinate fishes.
JEB grants to support junior faculty

Learn about the grants that we launched in 2023 to support junior faculty from two of our awardees: Erin Leonard, Early-Career Researcher (ECR) Visiting Fellowship recipient, and Pauline Fleischmann, Research Partnership Kickstart Travel Grant recipient. The next deadline to apply is 6 June 2025.
Thirteen-lined ground squirrels survive extraordinarily low blood oxygen

Brynne Duffy and colleagues reveal that thirteen-lined ground squirrels are true hypoxia champions surviving extreme low blood oxygen, down to just 34% oxygen, when they emerge briefly from hibernation.
The Company of Biologists Workshops

For the last 15 years, our publisher, The Company of Biologists, has provided an apt environment to inspire biology and support biologists through our Workshops series. Read about the evolution of the Workshop series and revisit JEB's experience with hosting the first Global South Workshop.
Fast & Fair peer review

Our sister journal Biology Open has recently launched the next phase of their Fast & Fair peer review initiative: offering high-quality peer review within 7 working days. To learn more about BiO’s progress and future plans, read the Editorial by Daniel Gorelick, or visit the Fast & Fair peer review page.