Issues

Summary: A novel system suitable for examining behavioural thermoregulation in large aquatic ectotherms maintains static thermal refuges in an otherwise sub-optimal thermal environment.

Highlighted Article: An orientation experiment shows that juvenile herring use a time-compensated sun compass; the impaired, but still present, orientation in overcast conditions suggests alternative mechanisms are also used.

Summary: Active muscle volume decreases with step frequency during human running and hopping. Accounting for these changes improves the ‘cost of generating force’ hypothesis application across step frequencies in bouncing gaits.

Summary: Male cichlids produce non-redundant visual and acoustic courtship displays and females show differential neural activation patterns in response to different received sensory information from males.

Summary: Stick insects compensate for different types of transient changes in load distribution by graded adjustment of muscle co-contraction rather than by a sudden switch in coordinated motor activity.

Editor's choice: Ant queens with experimentally removed or naturally shed wings express worker-like behaviors and physiology in a group setting that includes the display of dominance behavior during hierarchy establishment, which is normally a worker-only behavior in this species.

Summary: Variation in habitat Na⁺ and pH may be an important driver of differences in gill H⁺-ATPase activity and ion regulation across populations of prickly sculpin, Cottus asper, from marine and freshwater environments.

Highlighted Article: Video recordings and acoustic stimulation show that bat foraging success decreases in the presence of high duty cycle moth signals; bats alter their echolocation to compensate.

Highlighted Article: White-footed mice show consistent individual differences in heat substitution, an important yet overlooked mechanism that allows endotherms that are active in the cold to reduce the total energetic cost of activity and thermoregulation.

Summary:Pteronarcys californica nymphs exhibit plasticity in a coordinated set of respiratory phenotypes (critical thermal maxima, gill morphology and metabolic rates) during acclimation to different levels of oxygen and temperature.

Summary: Quadrupedal galloping in California sea lions shows intermediate energetic efficiency compared with more aquatic and fully terrestrial species during terrestrial locomotion.

Highlighted Article: Raccoons are a highly adaptive species anecdotally known for their intelligence. Advanced technologies used to test wild raccoon cognition found new insights into their behavior and cognitive abilities.