INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
- (How) do animals know how much they weigh?
Summary: Animal musculoskeletal designs must be finely tuned to variation in body weight. Various mechanisms that allow such fine tuning are discussed.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
- Cardiorespiratory responses in an Antarctic fish suggest limited capacity for thermal acclimation
Summary: The cardiorespiratory performance of Antarctic fish may limit the extent of thermal plasticity during acclimation, rendering them more sensitive to warming.
- Dancing to her own beat: honey bee foragers communicate via individually calibrated waggle dances
Summary: Each honey bee possesses her own calibration: individual duration–distance calibrations vary significantly in both slopes and intercepts. This variation may incur a cost for communication.
- Plasticity of upper thermal limits to acute and chronic temperature variation in Manduca sexta larvae
Summary: Heat tolerance in Manduca sexta larvae is affected by both the magnitude and the temporal pattern of previous exposure to high temperatures.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- The effects of call-like masking diminish after nightly exposure to conspecific choruses in green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea)
Summary: Hearing dynamic social stimuli, like frog choruses, can alter the responses of the auditory periphery in a way that could enhance detection of and response to conspecific acoustic communication.
- Ontogenetic changes in larval swimming and orientation of pre-competent sea urchin Arbacia punctulata in turbulence
Highlighted Article: Pre-competent, 6-armed larval urchins swim faster and are less stable in experimental turbulent flow than younger 4-armed larvae, suggesting a potential age/morphology-driven differential transport mechanism in ambient flow conditions.
- Decreased force enhancement in skeletal muscle sarcomeres with a deletion in titin
Summary: Force enhancement is absent in sarcomeres where amino acids in N2A and PEVK titin are deleted, indicating these specific regions are paramount in increasing titin stiffness in an active sarcomere.
- Turning performance in squid and cuttlefish: unique dual-mode, muscular hydrostatic systems
Summary: Squid and cuttlefish are capable of high maneuverability and agility through coordination of a unique muscular hydrostat-driven propulsive system involving paired fins and a pulsed jet.
- Plasticity in gastrointestinal morphology and enzyme activity in lactating striped hamsters (Cricetulus barabensis)
Summary: Lactating striped hamsters show significant plasticity in digestive tract morphology and enzyme activity, which increases reproductive performance.
- Heat stress enhances LTM formation in Lymnaea: role of HSPs and DNA methylation
Highlighted Article: A heat shock experienced by a snail enhances the snail's ability to form long-term memory; the up-regulation of heat shock proteins is a necessary requirement for this memory enhancement process.
- An animal homolog of plant Mep/Amt transporters promotes ammonia excretion by the anal papillae of the disease vector mosquito Aedes aegypti
Summary: An animal homolog of plant and bacterial ammonium transporters supports ammonia excretion at the anal papillae of mosquito larvae.
- Inadequate food intake at high temperatures is related to depressed mitochondrial respiratory capacity
Summary: Variation in performance among individual fish is associated with differences in their mitochondrial leak respiration rate and respiratory control ratio.
- Modification of sperm quality after sexual abstinence in Seba's short-tailed bat, Carollia perspicillata
Highlighted Article: A sexual abstinence experiment suggests that a difference in copulation frequency rather than an adaption to sperm competition provides Carollia perspicillata sneaker males with higher sperm quality than harem males.
- Intra-specific variation in wing morphology and its impact on take-off performance in blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) during escape flights
Summary: Blue tits with relatively larger wings have higher escape take-off performance, indicating that moult could increase the risk of predation.
- Internal pigment cells respond to external UV radiation in frogs
Summary: Internal melanin in melanocytes and melanomacrophages protects cells and organs of frogs against short-term external UVR exposure.
- Extracellular glucose supports lactate production but not aerobic metabolism in cardiomyocytes from both normoglycemic Atlantic cod and low glycemic short-horned sculpin
Summary: Glucose utilized by fish hearts is converted exclusively to lactate and not used to support aerobic metabolism. ATP produced in the cytosol may be a requirement for ionic regulation.
- Spatial resolving power and spectral sensitivity of the saltwater crocodile, Crocodylus porosus, and the freshwater crocodile, Crocodylus johnstoni
Highlighted Article: Spectral sensitivity shifts to longer wavelengths in the freshwater crocodile compared with the saltwater crocodile, while the visual acuity of both species remains the same.
- Morphology and motion: hindlimb proportions and swing phase kinematics in terrestrially locomoting charadriiform birds
Summary: Shorebird species with higher values of limb rotational inertia flex their limbs more during terrestrial locomotion; swing phase kinematics may therefore be strongly tied to limb rotational inertia.
This issue
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
Opportunities during challenging times
Editor-in-Chief Hans Hoppeler and Monitoring Editor Craig Franklin highlight new initiatives at JEB in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To continue advancing knowledge in the field, we are encouraging proposals for meta-analysis papers and timely Reviews and Commentaries within the JEB remit. New grant categories analogous to the Travelling Fellowships will fund collaborative data projects and the development of online resources for early-career researchers. Read their Editorial to find out more.
Cross-referee commenting
We are pleased to announce that JEB has expanded its peer review process to include cross-referee commenting. Read our News item for further details.
The OxymiR response to oxygen limitation
In their Review, Hanane Hadj-Moussa and Ken Storey assess OxymiRs in over 20 animal species. They reveal a lack of universal microRNA strategy, showing that instead there are species-specific responses to oxygen deprivation.
IReL joins The Company of Biologists Read & Publish deals
Researchers at nine institutions in Ireland can now publish an unlimited number of Open Access articles in JEB, immediately and at no cost to them, following a three-year Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and IReL. Find out more and see the growing list of participating institutions.
The Big Biology Podcast with Doug Fudge
Tune in to the latest JEB-sponsored episode of the Big Biology podcast. Art Woods and Marty Martin talk to Doug Fudge about all things slime as they discuss the hagfish and its slimy superpower.