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
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.