Issues

Summary: Naked mole-rats are among the most hypoxia-tolerant mammals. This Review summarizes the past decade of research exploring the mechanisms of this tolerance.

Summary: Metabolic rate–temperature relationships are plastic in dormant willow beetles, changing through time and in response to temperature acclimation. Incorporating plasticity into energy use models does not improve their accuracy.

Summary: Rapid increases in corticosterone are associated with increased glucose; however, there is no association between the degree of corticosterone and glucose increase in tree swallows.

Summary: GABAergic input neurons to the locust sky compass detect sky polarization and sun position but show poor matched-filter performance, suggesting that faithful heading direction signaling emerges within the central complex.

Summary: Crickets acquire spatial information such as shape, location and orientation of objects mediated by their antennal mechanosensory system, and even one antenna provides enough information to change their behavior.

Summary: Myocardial contraction and twitch kinetics provide mechanistic explanations as to why heart rate, but not stroke volume, increases in fish with temperature, and why maximal heart rate is constrained at cool/cold temperatures.

Highlighted Article: The thermal response to an immune challenge is tied to metabolic balance in birds. Endotoxin-injected chicks preserve energy, favoring regulated hypothermia and eliminating fever in the case of competing metabolic demands.

Summary: A bio-inspired balance control strategy for 3D running gait, supported experimentally and numerically with a 3D simulation model.

Highlighted Article: Proteomic analyses of blubber, muscle and plasma of northern elephant seals reveal changes in abundance of apolipoproteins, adipokines and hepatokines that underlie prolonged fasting.

Summary: Analysis of head and thorax movements of bumblebees freely flying in a cluttered environment shows they stabilize their head, which aids in obstacle detection, while their thorax performs evasive roll manoeuvres to avoid collisions.

Summary: Simultaneously hermaphroditic land snails make a mating partner sexually inactive by transferring accessory gland secretions, which should increase male reproductive success.

Summary: Measurements of both active and resting energy expenditure in breeding black-legged kittiwakes suggest that chick rearing may not be the costliest breeding stage, highlighting the need to measure both active and resting cost when assessing energy expenditure.

Summary: By integrating measurements of respirometry and acceleration in experimental swim trials, we demonstrate that acceleration can predict the energetic cost of locomotion in swimming bottlenose dolphins.

Summary:Xenopus laevis eggs and embryos microinjected with an antifreeze protein from the desert beetle Anatolica polita exhibited reduced damage and increased survival after a freeze–thaw cycle.

Summary: A recently developed sensory-ecological approach to creating a controlled light environment in the laboratory yields robust behavioural data, providing a detailed account of the skates' pupil changes from near circular under low light to a series of small triangular apertures under bright light.

Highlighted Article: Small predatory flies can simultaneously combine information about a moving target and a nearby obstacle to safely navigate to their goal. These flies sum the steering requirements of each task and take an intermediate path, much as humans do.