Issues

Summary: The development of high-resolution, three-dimensional (3D) motion data has sparked significant paradigm shifts in comparative biomechanics, enabling the emergence of new questions as well as the reinterpretation of long-standing scientific concerns.

Summary: Studying joint mobility, the set of all configurations that a joint can passively assume, can empower us to better tackle investigations of articular form–function relationships.

Summary: Rough substrates influence animal walking based on the relative, not absolute, scale of substrate features; this Review proposes terminology and metrics to enhance comparative study.

Summary: This Review summarizes experimental studies of the biomechanics, neuromuscular control and dynamic models of octopus and other cephalopod arms.

Summary: Flexibility represents a hidden axis of diversity among fishes that may have substantial impacts on swimming performance.

Summary: This Review considers how study setting influences the selection of animals, behaviors and methodologies for studying animal motion.

Summary: Tracking wild cheetahs is a challenging problem that pushes sensor technology to its limits and, consequently, a timeline of cheetah locomotion research also describes the evolution of field biomechanics methodology.

Summary: Biological insights have played a central role in shaping the modern aeronautical field, yet there remain several areas for which a bio-informed approach may offer novel solutions including miniaturization, efficiency and autonomy.

Summary: Comparisons of biomechanical performance for species of amphidromous goby fishes during feeding, adhesion, fast-start escapes and waterfall climbing across environmental, ontogenetic and geographic gradients provide ecological and evolutionary insights.

Summary: Small organisms use spring propulsion and latch mediation to control cascading processes of energy release, ultimately transforming small amounts of energy into energy-dense events.

Summary: Physical laws and ecological interactions determine how morphology affects biomechanical performance, which can influence the evolution of biological form and function.

Summary: A review of comparative muscle physiology highlights diversity that both supports and refutes classic theories of contraction, and suggests future directions to advance our understanding of muscle contraction and adaptation.

Summary: This Review examines how comparative biomechanics has transformed our understanding of the avian bill, from feeding biomechanics to vocalization and mechanosensory structures.

Summary: This Review examines kinematic data from various panarthropod species to explore how sensory feedback interplays with leg pattern generators to drive flexible locomotion over complex terrain.

Summary: Three-dimensional digital methods useful for the study of tetrapod locomotor biomechanics have matured in recent decades. Here, we summarise their progress, relevance and potential.

Summary: In some species, skeletal muscle performance alters in response to long-term temperature changes; other anthropogenic environmental changes, including pollutants, might also alter animal tissue mechanics, locomotor performance and behaviour.

Summary: This Review traces the evolution of technology in kinematic measurements over the past century and considers how those changes have influenced the nature of articles published in JEB.

Summary: Data on thousands of flights from foraging bees show that bees prefer to fly upwind, and that body angle and speed become more variable when bees fly downwind.

Summary: Live visualization of hummingbird bill movements and intraoral space reveals how they transfer nectar from the tongue to the throat – the eco-evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed.

Summary: Significant diversity in the length–force relationships of obliquely striated muscle, both within and between taxa, calls into question long-held assumptions about the factors that favored the evolution of oblique striation.