Issues

Summary: This Commentary presents an additional potential mechanism explaining how acidification can directly affect the olfactory system of marine organisms, leading to altered behavioural responses to various odorants.

Summary: Flies rendered genetically motion-blind have difficulty maintaining a straight flight trajectory and exhibit pronounced circling behaviour following unilateral wing clipping, indicating a stabilizing influence of motion vision on course control.

Summary: Rapid hardening improves pre- and post-copulatory aspects of male Antarctic midge biology during cold exposure.

Summary: Temperature, humidity and body condition have different effects on the hibernation energetics of male and female Perimyotis subflavus.

Highlighted Article: Maturation of the cardiac proteome may be a determining factor in the superior anoxia tolerance of adult relative to hatchling painted turtles.

Summary: A comparison of the visual systems in the scale worms Harmothoe imbricata and Lepidonotus squamatus reveals that H. imbricata may have adapted to see their own bioluminescence.

Summary: Biologging of cardiac responses to hypoxia and warming in a free-swimming fish reveals that confinement in respirometer chambers raises heart rate, with consequences for estimates of metabolic rate.

Highlighted Article: The aerodynamics of two-dimensional anatomically accurate airfoils provides new insight into the underlying physics of how flying snakes maintain stability or maneuver in mid-air, despite the lack of specialized morphology serving as control surfaces.

Summary: In Diplolaemus leopardinus a reduced evaporative water loss may mitigate the impact of rising temperatures on water balance, but a detrimental effect on net energy gain could increase its vulnerability.

Summary: Analysis of EMG, kinematics and centre of mass mechanics of quadrupedal (diagonal sequence) walking in Papio anubis supports the use of an inverted pendulum mechanism on the ground, while different gait and substrate contexts directly affect the muscular activity and the recovery rates toward higher costs.

Summary: Modelling the effects of temperature on free flying insects often relies on data from experiments performed in a laboratory, here we provide a model that gives context to the energetic differences between the terrestrial ecosystem and laboratory thermal environment.

Highlighted Article: Experimentally increasing insulin-like growth factor 1 levels surprisingly does not affect feather growth during natural moult, but speeds up moult intensity by initiating the renewal of several feathers.

Summary: Investigation of how nocturnal bull ants learn to move around obstacles in familiar and semi-familiar environments reveals that scene familiarity plays a significant role in navigation.

Summary: Spix's disc-winged bats constantly produce contact calls while searching for roosts, which significantly increases an individual's metabolic rate.

Summary: The nutritional quality of insect larval diets affects the scaling of metabolic rate with body mass in newly emerged adult honeybees.

Summary: Combining different domains of human visual opsins and melanopsin creates functionally unique chimeric opsins with potential optogenetic applications.