Issues

Summary: Description and evaluation of the utility of laser scanning confocal microscopy to measure physiological condition (Symbiodiniaceae fluorescence and tissue thickness) in reef-building corals.

Summary: Experimental corroboration of an inexpensive chemical proxy of metabolic rates in fish by relating biomineral isotopes to measured metabolic parameters.

Summary: Some vertebrates co-opt natural compounds to treat disease but their effectiveness may differ between life-history stages; evidence that this variation also occurs in an invertebrate is provided here.

Summary: Mus musculus molossinus are wild-derived melatonin-proficient mice that display photoperiodic changes in reproductive organs and body mass, enhanced by gestational experience and associated with corresponding changes in pituitary and hypothalamic gene expression.

Summary: The crab Neohelice chases after smaller crabs; manipulating prey dummies in the lab allowed identification of a combination of visual features that guide the crab's predatory behavior.

Summary: In situ average sarcomere length measured in the mid-belly of the maximally contracting mouse tibialis anterior (not relaxed muscles as in cadaveric studies) predicts muscle force in accordance with the standard ‘sliding filament’ model for single sarcomeres.

Summary: Introduced species use acclimatization to maintain high performance year round; therefore, phenotypic flexibility likely shapes the fundamental niche of both introduced and native species.

Highlighted Article: During the recovery process of survivors of white-nose syndrome, bats exhibited rapid mass gain and tissue healing. Healing appears to cause a trade-off between energy conservation and recovery.

Summary: We provide a robust empirical contribution to the understanding of individual-level consequences of developmental plasticity leading to cohort splitting, and highlight its importance in shaping key life history traits.

Summary: High-fat diet induces muscle fibre hypertrophy, an increase in oxidative capacity and accumulation of intracellular lipids, earlier in old than in young mice; these adaptations are muscle specific with the EDL being least responsive.

Highlighted Article: Platythyrea punctata ants show a fat content threshold for triggering foraging and egg-laying behaviour, indicating the co-opting of nutritional status to regulate division of labour in social insect colonies.

Summary: Scale-eating pupfish have rapidly evolved unique and counterintuitive jaw kinematics, which produce bite sizes that are 40% larger than in other species.

Summary: The measurement of the costs of swimming in wave-surge type flows revealed minimal costs for acceleration but large costs for turning in a pectoral-fin swimming reef fish.

Summary: In-air hearing thresholds of great cormorants resemble those of similarly sized diving birds, whereas their underwater hearing thresholds and ear anatomy suggest adaptations to aquatic hearing.

Summary: Worker castes in a monomorphic ponerine ant differ in their propensity to emit a chemical alarm signal as well as in their behavioural reaction towards it.

Summary: The neurogenomic and behavioral consequences of developing in differing social environments in a swordtail fish indicate that social exposure is necessary for the development of key behaviors.

Summary: Bone mechanical behavior varies among vertebral column regions, between sexes and over development in manatees, which are undulatory swimmers that live in neutrally or near-neutrally buoyant conditions.

Summary: Although low doses of a simulated bacterial infection increase oxidative damage in northern bobwhite quail, only high doses affect body mass and circulating triglyceride levels.