Cover image
Cover: Adult male sea otters, unlike terrestrial carnivores of similar size, may spend over half of their day foraging and consuming prey. L. C. Yeates, T. M. Williams and T. L. Fink investigated the energetic costs of such a ravenous appetite in wild otters diving along the California coast (pp. 1960−1970). The largest energetic expenditure was associated with foraging but was counterbalanced by periods of low-cost rest dispersed throughout the day and night. Such an interrupted pattern of eating and sleeping enabled sea otters to maintain a marine lifestyle despite their relatively small size. Photo credit: Bryant Austin (www.studiocosmos.com).
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Editors’ choice – Vision is highly sensitive to oxygen availability in marine invertebrate larvae
Visual systems are highly metabolically demanding, making them sensitive to fluctuations in oxygen. For marine animals, vision is crucial to survival, but oxygen levels can vary greatly over time and depending on water depth. Lillian McCormick, Lisa Levin and Nicholas Oesch now assess the impact of reduced oxygen on the vision of marine invertebrate larvae.
“When I started at Carleton, I was interested in physics, but it turned out that I was inspired by my high school teacher and not by the subject itself.”
Heath MacMillan is an Assistant Professor at Carleton University, Canada, where he studies the physiological mechanisms limiting ectotherm performance. In this interview, Heath talks about what inspired him to become a scientist, his experience as an early career researcher, and his opinion on pre-prints in the comparative physiology field.
Obituary – Ewald R. Weibel (1929-2019)
Ewald R. Weibel passed away in February, aged 89. He continued to be fully engaged scientifically at the time of his death, preparing a draft introduction for his ultimate research paper just two weeks before his final hospitalization, write Hans Hoppeler and Stan Lindstedt. His articles and books cover three main areas: lung structure and function, stereology, and the design of the respiratory system. He will be remembered as an outstanding scientist.
The Peter Baker Fellowship is for post-doctoral scientists interested in marine biology research, especially physiological research. This fund is held in trust by the Physiological Society, The Company of Biologists and the Marine Biological Association. Application deadline: 31 January 2020.
If you’re going to the SEB annual meeting in Seville from 2 to 5 July, call by our stand to chat to JEB Reviews Editors Charlotte Rutledge and Stefan Galander and pick up free JEB goodies!
The Company of Biologists provide 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 02 September 2019.
preLights – Active behaviour during early development shapes glucocorticoid reactivity
JEB Monitoring Editor and guest preLighter Katie Gilmour highlights a preprint from Luis Castillo-Ramírez, Soojin Ryu and Rodrigo De Marco, who establish developing zebrafish as a model system to study how early-life stress modulates the function of the stress axis and stress responses later in life.