Issues

Summary: Mosquitoes, snakes and beetles all hunt targets, from people and mice centimeters away to burning forests kilometers away, using the heat these targets emit. We review the diverse mechanisms involved.

Summary: We demonstrate that sea urchin righting response, locomotion and adhesion are negatively impacted by hyposalinity, an environmental challenge expected to increase in intensity and frequency under global climate change.

Summary: The OSpRad spectroradiometer uses off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts, and can be controlled via smartphone. It operates from approximately 320 to 880 nm, and at low light down to approximately 0.001 cd m⁻².

Summary: Development of a method for measuring the 3D vortical structures of anguilliform swimmers using volumetric velocimetry, providing a baseline for comparing swimming efficiency and wake structures of snakes with different morphologies and ecologies.

Summary: Analysis of sex reversal in two lizard species indicates that the consequences of energy use and growth vary depending on the phenotype that reverses sex, and energy consequences may differ as individuals grow larger.

Summary: A strong positive allometry of bite force enables leaf-cutter ant colonies to forage on a wider range of plant species without the need for extreme investment in even larger ant workers.

Summary: Access to surplus energy, but not to oxygen, leads to improved post-maturation growth in fish, suggesting a role for energy reallocation, not oxygen limitation, in driving the deceleration of adult growth.

Highlighted Article: Investigation of effects of strain and activation on muscle force and work using a muscle avatar approach in which measured strain and activation patterns from a muscle of interest are applied to ex vivo muscles from laboratory rodents.

Summary: Shortening velocity at self-selected cadence increases with power output, whereas at low power demands, minimizing knee muscle activation becomes important in cadence selection during cycling.

Summary: Birds with high CpG content (epigenetic potential) in the promoter of an important immune gene are better able to resist Salmonella infection, suggesting that the genetic architecture underlying DNA methylation might be an important facilitator of adaptive plasticity.

Highlighted Article: Individual trout with the highest metabolic rate are more likely to record detailed temporal changes in their otoliths.

Summary: Tracking of dietary labelled nitrogen reveals sustained enrichment in the intestinal spiral valve of spiny dogfish, indicating its importance in the acquisition of the nitrogen necessary for marine elasmobranch urea synthesis and osmoregulation.

Summary: Cory's and Cape Verde shearwaters reduced their 95% kernel utilization distribution when their chicks were supplemented with omega-3 fatty acids, and Cory's shearwaters also reduced their foraging effort.

Editor's choice: New models explain how southern elephant seals could perform their dives and how their buoyancy impacts their capabilities.

Summary: Adult cardiac valves act sequentially as a result of muscle contraction, and exhibit a similar morphology to larval valves but show fewer cell shape changes. The larval valve is retained during metamorphosis.

Summary: Use of novel drone technology to measure the respiration rate and body condition loss of southern right whales reveals that mass-specific energy expenditure declines with body size, increases with activity level and is higher for reproductively active females.