INSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
- Parasite-altered feeding behavior in insects: integrating functional and mechanistic research frontiers
Summary: A new and important wave of research investigates how parasites can change feeding behavior in insects in ways that benefit either the host or the parasite.
REVIEW
- Tail regeneration and other phenomena of wound healing and tissue restoration in lizards
Summary: We highlight how lizards can inform, enhance and expand our understanding of the biology of regeneration.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
- Contraction-induced enhancement of relaxation during high force contractions of mouse lumbrical muscle at 37°C
Summary: The fast and slow phases of relaxation from high force isometric contractions can be enhanced following electrically evoked contraction of intact mouse lumbrical muscle at physiological temperatures.
- Pre-settlement coral-reef fish larvae respond to magnetic field changes during the day
Summary: The individual orientation behaviour of coral-reef fish larvae during the pre-settlement phase is influenced by magnetic-field shifts, which indicates sensitivity to the geomagnetic field and the use of a magnetic compass during dispersal and settlement.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Determining the behavioural dose–response relationship of marine mammals to air gun noise and source proximity
Highlighted Article: An analytical framework relating the behavioural response of whales to received level and proximity of a noise source, with dose–response results of humpback whales to air guns.
- Behavioral color vision in a cichlid fish: Metriaclima benetos
Summary: Behavioral assays were used to determine the color-vision capabilities of a rock-dwelling cichlid from Lake Malawi and suggest that cichlids possess a trichromatic visual system.
- Chamber music: an unusual Helmholtz resonator for song amplification in a Neotropical bush-cricket (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae)
Summary: Laser vibrometry, microcomputed tomography and finite element modelling are used to show that an unusual pronotal inflation covering the wings of a bush-cricket acts as a Helmholtz resonator.
- Homing pigeons (Columba livia) modulate wingbeat characteristics as a function of route familiarity
Highlighted Article: Onboard accelerometry reveals that pigeons' flight characteristics undergo gradual changes over the course of learning a route, and thus provide potential biomechanical signatures of birds' landscape familiarity.
- Ammonia exposure affects the mRNA and protein expression levels of certain Rhesus glycoproteins in the gills of climbing perch
Summary: Active ammonia excretion in the gills of the climbing perch, Anabas testudineus, may involve apical Rhag and basolateral Rhcg2 expressed in ammonia-inducible Na+/K+-ATPase α1c-immunoreactive ionocytes.
- miR-210 expression is associated with methionine-induced differentiation of trout satellite cells
Summary: Identification of a novel myo-miR (miR-210) by miRNA microarray, qRT-PCR, and next generation sequencing, recognized in trout as a novel regulator of differentiation through the use of methionine depletion to synchronize cells.
- Heart rate dynamics in a marsupial hibernator
Summary: Control and function of the cardiac system in the eastern pygmy possum during deep torpor is indistinguishable from that of a placental hibernator, and its dynamic heart rate range is one of the greatest measured to date at ∼600 beats min−1.
- Effects of a social cue on reproductive development and pre-alternate molt in seasonally breeding migrant and resident female songbirds (Zonotrichia leucophrys)
Highlighted Article: Migrant and resident birds exhibit differences in reproductive development consistent with adaptive specialization in the use of photoperiodic cues, but not social cues, to regulate reproductive development.
- Carotenoids buffer the acute phase response on fever, sickness behavior and rapid bill color change in zebra finches
Summary: Carotenoids are colorful pigments traded off between display and health. When we induced a strong immune response, zebra finches supplemented with carotenoids were able to buffer the negative effects of sickness.
- Rapid growth causes abnormal vaterite formation in farmed fish otoliths
Summary: The rapid growth experienced by farmed fishes causes an otolith deformation rarely seen in the wild.
- Low levels of extracellular glucose limit cardiac anaerobic metabolism in some species of fish
Summary: Cardiac anaerobic metabolism is compromised in fish species with low levels of plasma glucose. This in turn may limit hypoxic performance.
- Reproductive and metabolic state differences in olfactory responses to amino acids in a mouth brooding African cichlid fish
Summary: Electro-olfactograms in an African cichlid fish reveal intra-sexual plasticity in olfactory responses of both males and females that is related to reproductive and metabolic state.
- Changes in mechanical work during neural adaptation to asymmetric locomotion
Summary: Minimizing mechanical work performed by the legs may drive locomotor adaptation, with wide relevance for the control of legged locomotion and motor learning in novel environments.
This issue
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
Predicting the Future: Species Survival in a Changing World
Read our new special issue exploring the significant role of experimental biology in assessing and predicting the susceptibility or resilience of species to future, human-induced environmental change.
Big Biology Podcast - Hollie Putnam and coral bleaching
Catch the next JEB-sponsored episode of the Big Biology Podcast where Art and Marty talk to Hollie Putnam about the causes of coral bleaching and the basic biology of corals in the hope of selectively breeding corals that can better tolerate future ocean conditions.
Read Hollie's Review on the subject, which is featured in our current special issue.
Stark trade-offs and elegant solutions in arthropod visual systems
Many elegant eye specializations that evolved in response to visual challenges continue to be discovered. A new Review by Meece et al. summarises exciting solutions evolved by insects and other arthropods in response to specific visual challenges.
Head bobbing gives pigeons a sense of perspective
Pigeons might look goofy with their head-bobbing walk, but it turns out that the ungainly head manoeuvre allows the birds to judge distance.