Issues

Summary: An analytical approach for voluntary behavior in hummingbirds suggests four broad hypotheses for the biomechanics of manuevering flight.

Summary: New perspectives and methodologies for investigating the thermal limits of mitochondrial performance suggest that these organelles may play a role in shaping thermal limits at the organismal level.

Summary: The jaw muscles of two salmon species produce maximum bite force at different gape sizes, highlighting muscle physiology as an important axis of functional feeding variation.

Highlighted Article: Female panther chameleons choose mates based on specific aspects of colour change in courting males, both in the visible and the UV range.

Summary: A dynamic analytical model of the motion and analysis of muscle cross-sections indicate that different joint levels in the bovine tail are subjected to different mechanical load magnitudes, resulting in variation in intervertebral disc microstructure.

Summary: Contrary to prevailing views on the mechanisms of hearing in frogs, the lung-to-ear pathway for sound transmission does not improve directional hearing in these vociferous vertebrates.

Summary: In this unique air-breathing fish, the kidney is more important than gills in ionoregulation, and is significant in nitrogen excretion; gill ion transport is sensitive to oxygen in both air and water.

Summary: The Hydra somersault is facilitated by differential stiffness contributed by the organization of collagen fibers in the extracellular matrix. The extracellular matrix assumes a pseudo-skeletal property important for locomotion.

Highlighted Article: Analysis of previously undocumented skimming and sliding behaviors used by remoras reveals they preferentially adhere to areas with reduced drag on blue whales.

Highlighted Article: Hummingbirds ingest nectar rich in glucose and fructose; when fasted, tissue capacity for circulating glucose import declines while remaining elevated for fructose. This may underlie maintenance of high blood glucose and rapid depletion of blood fructose.

Summary: Co-stimulating both copies of an identified modulatory projection neuron at the same combined firing rate used for single copy stimulation results in different microcircuit output.

Summary: Maternal and embryonic exposure to mild hypoxia influence timings of developmental events, whereas aspects of embryo morphology and overall development time were influenced only by embryonic exposure to mild hypoxia.

Summary: Depriving captive fish of structural enrichment increases disease susceptibility, causing elevated pathogen burden and host metabolism. Furthermore, fish from deprived environments demonstrate higher levels of aggression.

Summary: Development of the neuroendocrine system driving photoperiodic responses in gonadal and somatic growth differs between the common and the tundra vole, indicating that they use a different breeding strategy.

Summary: Ocean chemistry, light and temperature are changing under climate change. These changes have a synergistic impact on metabolic processes involved in energy acquisition in a coral–algal symbiosis.

Summary: Duration of heating but not voluntary thermal maximum predicted water loss in a cool-climate viviparous gecko.

Summary: Morphology predicts behavior and physiological performance, which for rorquals results in both biomechanical and ecological constraints.

Summary: We used 3D-printed model eggs with checkered patterns of varying dimensions to test how chromatic visual acuity affects egg recognition in an avian brood parasite host species, the American robin.

Summary: Seals possess unique anatomical modifications that may act as accessory ‘valving’ mechanisms in their upper airway to assist in underwater feeding.

Summary: Echolocating bats perceive absolute distance to objects by measuring the time delay between call and echo. In addition, they possess spatial resolution along the distance axis.

Summary: Life stages differ in thermal plasticity to increased temperature fluctuations, which may affect how some organisms fare under a warming climate.

Summary: Argentine ants plunged into darkness do not slow down while walking on flat and uneven terrain or while approaching and crossing a step obstacle.

Summary: Increased allocation to different types of locomotor performance (endurance versus sprinting) results in complex trade-offs with the immune system that are not caused by energy limitation alone.

Summary: Essential conditions to induce oscillatory movements of eukaryotic flagella under sub-threshold ATP concentrations were clarified.

Summary: New insights into the mechanisms underlying the high survival of oysters infected with OsHV-1 at 29°C, inducing host physiological processes that are unfavorable to the viral infection.

Summary: Anoxic annual killifish embryos produce millimolar quantities of GABA. Interruptions in GABA metabolism decrease anoxia tolerance. We propose that GABA supports anoxia tolerance as a neurotransmitter and an anti-oxidant.