INSIDE JEB
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Among-species variation in the energy budgets of reef-building corals: scaling from coral polyps to communities
Summary: Coral species vary in their reliance on particulate food sources but food availability affects only certain aspects of coral physiology. Changes in species composition of reefs are likely to affect the fluxes of organic matter between reefs and the open ocean.
- Skeletal muscle contractile function predicts activity and behaviour in zebrafish
Highlighted Article: Muscle contractile properties determine voluntary movement speed and activity of animals, and thereby influence risk-taking behaviour, providing a functional explanation for differences in behavioural phenotypes between individuals.
- Acute cold and exercise training up-regulate similar aspects of fatty acid transport and catabolism in house sparrows (Passer domesticus)
Summary: Cold and exercise training in house sparrows increase trans-sarcolemmal and intramyocyte lipid transport capacities and cellular metabolic intensities associated with elevated shivering thermogenesis and exercise capacities.
- Three-dimensional morphology and strain of the human Achilles free tendon immediately following eccentric heel drop exercise
Summary: Eccentric exercise induces immediate changes in biaxial transverse strain of the human Achilles free tendon in vivo that appear to be linked to corresponding creep-dependent changes in longitudinal strain.
- Reproduction is not costly in terms of oxidative stress
Summary: Oxidative damage does not increase in female bank voles rearing four enlarged litters, which undermines the hypothesis linking oxidative stress with the trade-off between current and future reproductive effort.
- Experimental evidence that litter size imposes an oxidative challenge to offspring
Summary: Experimental manipulation of litter size in wild-derived mice increases oxidative challenges in large litters and influences investment in sexual signalling, indicating long-term effects of rearing environment.
- Fear is the mother of invention: anuran embryos exposed to predator cues alter life-history traits, post-hatching behaviour and neuronal activity patterns
Summary: Predator kairomones perceived by anuran embryos induce life-history and behavioural changes in tadpoles, and result in a long-term increase in neuronal activity and response to predator cues.
- The water channel aquaporin-1a1 facilitates movement of CO2 and ammonia in zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae
Highlighted Article: The water channel aquaporin-1a1 contributes to CO2 and ammonia excretion in zebrafish larvae, indicating that it serves in vivo as a gas channel for CO2 and ammonia movement across biological membranes.
- Morphology does not predict performance: jaw curvature and prey crushing in durophagous stingrays
Summary: Disparate jaw morphologies are functionally equivalent in a diverse family of hard-prey-feeding stingrays, despite their prey spanning a continuum of shell structural and material properties.
- Sources and range of long-term variability of rhythmic motor patterns in vivo
Summary: Light-driven activity patterns exist in vivo for pyloric and gastric mill rhythms, but are overshadowed by substantial variability and occluded by sensory influences, which alter motor pattern structure.
- Infection with schistosome parasites in snails leads to increased predation by prawns: implications for human schistosomiasis control
Highlighted Article: Prawns consume more schistosome-infected snails than uninfected snails; infected snails exhibit altered behavior that may contribute to this preference.
- Auditory modulation of wind-elicited walking behavior in the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus
Summary: Crickets alter the orientation of their wind-elicited walking behavior and response threshold after exposure to a 10 kHz sound stimulus, suggesting a multisensory interaction between the auditory and cercal sensory systems.
- Why arboreal snakes should not be cylindrical: body shape, incline and surface roughness have interactive effects on locomotion
Highlighted Article: For snake locomotion, the effects of surface roughness and steepness are interactive and species dependent, partly because some species have specialized non-cylindrical shapes that facilitate catching small surface protrusions.
- On doing two things at once: dolphin brain and nose coordinate sonar clicks, buzzes and emotional squeals with social sounds during fish capture
Summary: Dolphins use sonar to hunt fish; they make different sounds and different decisions simultaneously.
- The kinematics of directional control in the fast start of zebrafish larvae
Summary: The 3D direction of an escape response by a larval zebrafish is correlated with the degree of body rotation in yaw and pitch.
- Diet and endocrine effects on behavioral maturation-related gene expression in the pars intercerebralis of the honey bee brain
Summary: Transcriptomic profiling of the pars intercerebralis in the honey bee brain provides mechanistic insights into how neurosecretory signals mediate social behavior.
This issue
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Editorial – The changing of the guard
In his Editorial, Hans Hoppeler announces that he will be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of JEB in July 2020. He reflects on the history of JEB, why he has enjoyed his tenure as JEB’s Editor-in-Chief and the recent developments in the publishing world.
Big Biology podcast
JEB is partnering with the Big Biology podcast and in this sponsored episode, JEB Editor Michael Dickinson talks to the Big Biology team about the aerodynamic mechanisms of insect flight, how insects control flight with their tiny 100k neuron brain and his recent JEB paper showing how fruit flies navigate using the sun and polarized light as a compass.
Editors’ choice – An appetite for invasion: digestive physiology, thermal performance and food intake in lionfish (Pterois spp.)
Invasive lionfish are a colossal problem in the Mediterranean Sea and western Atlantic Ocean. Now it turns out that they are successful invaders because they invest more energy in digestion than moving about.
Travelling Fellowship – Anti-ageing in the Greenland Shark
Find out how Pierre Delaroche’s Travelling Fellowship grant from the Journal of Experimental Biology took him to Greenland, where he gathered data to further understand the ageing process in the longest-living vertebrate known to science. Don’t miss the next application deadline for 2020 travel, coming up on 29 November. Where will your research take you?
Commentary – Yank: the time derivative of force is an important biomechanical variable in sensorimotor systems
The derivative of force with respect to time does not have a standard term in physics. In their new Commentary, David C. Lin and his colleagues propose that the term ‘yank’ should be used to denote the time derivative of force.
Runners waste energy every time their legs stop swinging, but now a team of scientists from the US and Canada have shown that a springy ankle tether can reduce runners’ energy costs by 6.4%, which is nearly the entire cost of swinging the limbs. Read the full research article here.
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!
preLights – Oxygenation properties of hemoglobin and the evolutionary origins of isoform multiplicity in an amphibious air-breathing fish, the blue-spotted mudskipper (Boleophthalmus pectinirostris)
Charlotte Nelson highlights work in mudskippers suggesting that a diversity in expressed hemoglobin isoforms is not required for the switch between aquatic and aerial respiration.