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.