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.