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Editors’ choice – Zombie ant death grip due to hypercontracted mandibular muscles
Image credit: Melissa Ishler; specimen collected by Kimberly Fleming
David Hughes and his team show how a parasitic fungus invades the mandibular muscles of carpenter ants and forces the zombie insects to clamp their mandibles tightly to a leaf vein or twig before they die.
Commentary - The good, the bad and the slimy: experimental studies of hagfish digestive and nutritional physiology
The hagfishes provide valuable insight into the physiology of feeding, digestion and nutrient absorption by virtue of unusual and unique features of their biology. In their Commentary, Chris Glover and Alyssa Weinrauch discuss the key aspects of hagfish feeding and digestive processes, and highlight the pitfalls of this group as experimental organisms.
Image credit: Fredrik Christiansen.
Peter Madsen and his colleagues find that low-output infrequent calls in baleen whale mother–calf pairs may mediate contact between mother and calf, while decreasing the risk of detection by potential predators. Read their full research article here.
The Peter Baker Fellowship is for post-doctoral scientists interested in marine biology research, especially physiological research. It will provide living and travel expenses (up to £3,000) to spend approximately two months working at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, at any time of the year. Bench fees will be waived and a small sum may be available to assist with research expenses. This fund is held in trust by the Physiological Society, The Company of Biologists and the Marine Biological Association. Application deadline: 31 January 2020.
Journal of Experimental Biology is pleased to announce a new partnership with Publons! This allows reviewers to easily track and verify every review by choosing to add the review to their Publons profile when completing the review submission form. Publons also makes it simple for reviewers to showcase their peer review contributions in a format that can be included in job and funding applications (without breaking reviewer anonymity). Read the official announcement here!
The Company of Biologists provides grants to fund scientific meetings, workshops and conferences in the fields covered by our journals. Typically, meetings with fewer than 100 people may be granted up to £2,000, increasing up to £6,000 for about 400 people. The next deadline to apply is 2 September 2019.
preLights - Oxygen supply capacity in animals evolves to meet maximum demand at the current oxygen partial pressure regardless of size or temperature
Charlotte Nelson highlights a preprint from Brad Seibel and Curtis Deutsch, who found that, regardless of body mass or temperature, the capacity to supply oxygen is tightly matched to the maximum evolved demand at the highest reliably available oxygen pressure experienced by the species.