INSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
- Insect navigation: do ants live in the now?
Summary: Ant navigation has traditionally been thought of as an example of how complex behaviour can come from simple mechanisms. We review recent results that show how an ant's navigational mechanisms are more complex than previously thought.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Feeding in billfishes: inferring the role of the rostrum from a biomechanical standpoint
Summary: Biomechanical differences derived from rostrum morphology and composition lead to species-specific feeding behavior in billfishes.
- Evolutionary adaptations for the temporal processing of natural sounds by the anuran peripheral auditory system
Summary: Peripheral auditory systems of treefrogs are evolutionarily adapted to process the temporal fluctuations inherent in conspecific communication signals.
- Species-specific loss of sexual dimorphism in vocal effectors accompanies vocal simplification in African clawed frogs (Xenopus)
Highlighted article: How do nervous systems change evolutionarily to generate species-specific behaviors? The simplified male courtship songs of a frog, Xenopus borealis, reflect feminization of the larynx and its connection to the brain.
- Symbiont type influences trophic plasticity of a model cnidarian–dinoflagellate symbiosis
Summary: Not all cnidarian–dinoflagellate symbioses are equally nutritionally advantageous to the animal as the genetic identity of the symbiont affects the host's feeding capacity.
- Body saccades of Drosophila consist of stereotyped banked turns
Summary: Using high-speed 3D videography and a dynamically scaled robotic fly, we studied the biomechanics and aerodynamics of saccadic turns in flying flies. We show that these maneuvers are remarkably stereotypic.
- Six degree-of-freedom analysis of hip, knee, ankle and foot provides updated understanding of biomechanical work during human walking
Highlighted article: Six degree-of-freedom (6DOF) analysis of hip–knee–ankle–foot better captures energy changes of the body during gait than conventional 3DOF joint work estimates, revealing increased work contributions from the hip.
- Response to a change in the target nest during ant relocation
Summary: Colonies of relocating ants show remarkable flexibility in their ability to reassess and modify their response when their target nest is changed midway through relocation.
- How effective are acoustic signals in territorial defence in the Lusitanian toadfish?
Summary: Muting experiments show that fish sounds are efficient territorial ‘keep-out’ signals, similar to bird song.
- Making Olympic lizards: the effects of specialised exercise training on performance
Summary: Specialised training in lizards leads to dramatic increases in performance and changes in physiology.
- Acoustic models of orangutan hand-assisted alarm calls
Highlighted article: Orangutans modify the calls they make to predators with their hands. The acoustic effect is that their calls then sound as if they were made by a bigger animal.
- Spectral sensitivity in Onychophora (velvet worms) revealed by electroretinograms, phototactic behaviour and opsin gene expression
Summary: The simple eyes of velvet worms contain only one visual pigment based on onychopsin that detects blue-green light, which the animals actively avoid.
- Sequential exposure to a combination of stressors blocks memory reconsolidation in Lymnaea
Summary: Reconsolidation occurs after a memory has been activated. We show here that a combination of stressors can block this process.
- Pregnancy limits lung function during exercise and depresses metabolic rate in the skink Tiliqua nigrolutea
Highlighted article: Pregnancy depresses metabolic rate in blotched blue tongue lizards and limits exercise ability. Despite the developing fetuses compressing the lungs, gas diffusion ability was not altered.
- Vocalisations of the bigeye Pempheris adspersa: characteristics, source level and active space
Summary: This paper details the bigeye vocalisation and the potential detection distances of the vocalisation under different noise regimes.
- Learning context modulates aversive taste strength in honey bees
Summary: Learning context is a key modulator of taste in the honey bee.
This issue
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
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.