Issues

Summary: This Review summarizes recent findings on the diversity of melanopsin phototransduction mechanisms described in subtypes of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells and the conservation of these cascades across the evolutionary tree.

Summary: A new technique for assessing sensory–motor integration evoked by leg stimulation in whole aquatic animals under natural conditions to supplement current ablation/silencing methods.

Highlighted Article: Rainbow trout cope with the aversive effects caused by coronary artery obstruction through plastic ventricular remodeling.

Summary: In voles, photoperiodic responses driving gonadal activation are modified when food is scarce or temperatures are low by changing hypothalamic Tshβ, Kiss1 and Rfrp expression to adaptively adjust the timing of reproductive organ development.

Summary: In hibernating garden dormice, torpor bout length depends on oxygen consumption. This indicates that torpor duration is determined by accumulation of a metabolic imbalance, which is cleared during periodic rewarming.

Highlighted Article: Temporal processing by a subset of midbrain auditory neurons plays key roles in decoding information about species identity in anurans.

Highlighted Article: Lantern bugs are large insects that jump at high-take-off velocities using a catapult mechanism that matches the performance of their much smaller planthopper relatives.

Summary: Measured metabolic rate in three adult female Pacific walruses during stationary dives was lower from that measured during subsurface swimming and while floating at the water surface.

Summary: The impulse response of hoverfly optic flow-sensitive descending neurons to roll m-sequences reaches its time to peak within 20 ms and slowly returns to baseline over the next 100 ms.

Summary: A test for the causative factors behind the temperature–size rule in rotifers validates the theoretical conceptualization, but only for the non-stressful conditions.

Summary: Larger alligators walk with more upright limb posture and smaller size-normalized joint moments. Limb forces are more hindlimb dominant in larger alligators, possibly owing to a more posterior center of mass and less compliant hindlimbs.