INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
REVIEW
- Ammonia and urea handling by early life stages of fishes
Summary: We review the metabolic, morphological and physiological features unique to embryonic and larval fishes that are necessary to cope with an amino acid-fuelled metabolism and lack of a functional gill.
- Studying emotion in invertebrates: what has been done, what can be measured and what they can provide
Summary: Recent work has adapted methods for assessing emotions in humans and other animals, to invertebrates, with intriguing results. This Review interprets and discusses their utility with respect to the evolution and neurobiology of emotion.
SHORT COMMUNICATION
- Waiting for the Sun: the circannual programme of reindeer is delayed by the recurrence of rhythmical melatonin secretion after the arctic night
Summary: Exposure to constant light or constant darkness accelerates the onset of spring physiology in overwintering reindeer; this has implications for current models of circannual time-keeping in mammals.
- Humeral loads during swimming and walking in turtles: implications for morphological change during aquatic reinvasions
Summary: Turtle humeri experience reduced torsional loads during swimming compared with terrestrial walking. Such reductions may have facilitated the transition from tubular to flattened limb bones in secondarily aquatic tetrapods.
METHODS & TECHNIQUES
- Bringing the analysis of animal orientation data full circle: model-based approaches with maximum likelihood
Summary: A new statistical package developed in R for the maximum likelihood analysis of animal orientation data. Both simulated and empirical examples are provided for demonstration.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Re-oxygenation after anoxia induces brain cell death and memory loss in the anoxia-tolerant crucian carp
Highlighted Article: Anoxia-tolerant crucian carp sustain brain cell death during early re-oxygenation, as well as impaired memory, although damage is transient and does not diminish learning ability.
- Functional morphology of terrestrial prey capture in salamandrid salamanders
Summary: Functional trade-offs of the hyobranchial apparatus result in lower tongue-projection distance, velocity, acceleration and power in semi-aquatic and aquatic salamandrids compared with terrestrial specialists.
- Beneficial effects of a heat wave: higher growth and immune components driven by a higher food intake
Summary: Damselfly larvae benefit from a heat wave by increasing growth rate and immune components, which can be attributed to an increase in food intake.
- Metabolic costs imposed by hydrostatic pressure constrain bathymetric range in the lithodid crab Lithodes maja
Highlighted Article: Hyperbaric limitation of depth range suggests the incorporation of hydrostatic pressure into a complex model of environmental tolerance, where energy limitation constrains biogeographic range, and into the metabolic framework for ecology and evolution.
- Frequency organization of the Johnston’s organ in male mosquitoes (Diptera, Culicidae)
Summary: Male mosquitoes possess at least eight groups of auditory neurons distinct in frequency tuning. They gradually amplify receptor potentials in a non-spiking mode. Individual frequencies range from 85 to 470 Hz.
- O2 binding and CO2 sensitivity in haemoglobins of subterranean African mole rats
Summary: Haemoglobin–O2 binding properties of African mole rats reveal low specific CO2 sensitivities compared with humans that predictably safeguard O2 uptake and transport under hypoxic and hypercapnic conditions.
- Induced parental care in a poison frog: a tadpole cross-fostering experiment
Summary: Placement of unrelated tadpoles on adult poison frogs triggers a cascade of parental behaviours involving tadpole transport and spatial memory use in both sexes, despite the asymmetric parental sex roles.
- The metabolic costs of fighting and host exploitation in a seed-drilling parasitic wasp
Editors' Choice: Fights between parasitoid females require little energy, but drilling through seeds to access hosts is expensive. Females avoid metabolic costs by reusing holes drilled by rivals (superparasitism).
- Hydrodynamic function of dorsal fins in spiny dogfish and bamboo sharks during steady swimming
Summary: The function of dorsal fins varies among shark species, and these fins can act in either a stabilizing or thrust-generating role.
- Upper thermal limits of growth in brook trout and their relationship to stress physiology
Summary: Elevated temperature (>22°C) reduces growth rate and induces endocrine and cellular stress responses of brook trout. Daily temperature oscillation around a mean temperature of 21°C decreases growth and increases heat shock proteins.
- Early gametogenesis in the Pacific oyster: new insights using stem cell and mitotic markers
Summary: Alkaline phosphatase activity and immunochemistry reveal that oyster germline cells are located in the gonad duct outer edge during the resting period and proliferate very early during the next sexual cycle.
- Strategies of ionoregulation in the freshwater nymph of the mayfly Hexagenia rigida
Summary: Freshwater mayfly nymphs regulate salt and water balance using the alimentary canal, Malpighian tubules and tracheal gills, and data provide the first direct evidence that the tracheal gills are ion transport organs.
- Silica-induced fibrosis: an ancient response from the early metazoans
Highlighted Article: Investigation of the molecular mechanism of an ancient physiological behaviour in sponges in which engulfed quartz particles are fibrogenic and the process is cytokine mediated as in human fibrosis.
- Natural epigenetic variation within and among six subspecies of the house sparrow, Passer domesticus
Summary: Genome-wide DNA methylation variation in subspecies of house sparrow is largely independent of subspecies designation and does not follow differences in habitat, but is associated with several other biological phenomena such as morphology, sex and commensalism.
- Plausible link between circa‘bi’dian activity rhythms and circadian clock systems in the large black chafer Holotrichia parallela
Summary: The large black chafer Holotrichia parallela has an endogenous circa‘bi'dian rhythm, which is seemingly produced by the circadian clock system. The 2-day periodicity appears in both the laboratory and the field.
- Mitochondrial capacity, oxidative damage and hypoxia gene expression are associated with age-related division of labor in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) workers
Summary: Changes in mitochondrial activity and hypoxia gene expression in the head, thorax and abdomen of honey bee workers are associated with the nurse bee to forager transition.
- Function of the hypobranchial muscles and hyoidiomandibular ligament during suction capture and bite processing in white-spotted bamboo sharks, Chiloscyllium plagiosum
Summary: Hypobranchial muscles of bamboo sharks allow for storage and release of elastic strain energy during suction feeding, which is facilitated by a four-bar linkage that links jaw and hyoid depression.
- Variation in developmental trajectories of physiological and somatic traits in a common songbird approaching fledging
Summary: Developmental trajectory just prior to fledging in songbirds may be hardwired across natural and experimentally manipulated environmental conditions, but shows oxidative stress cost.
- Sex hormones and the development of sexual size dimorphism: 5α-dihydrotestosterone inhibits growth in a female-larger lizard (Sceloporus undulatus)
Summary: Dihydrotestosterone mimics the effects of testosterone on growth and coloration in a female-larger lizard, and both sexes share downstream regulatory mechanisms required for growth inhibition and enhanced coloration in response to androgens.
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Editors’ choice – Zombie ant death grip due to hypercontracted mandibular muscles
Image credit: Melissa Ishler; specimen collected by Kimberly Fleming
David Hughes and his team show how a parasitic fungus invades the mandibular muscles of carpenter ants and forces the zombie insects to clamp their mandibles tightly to a leaf vein or twig before they die.
Commentary - The good, the bad and the slimy: experimental studies of hagfish digestive and nutritional physiology
The hagfishes provide valuable insight into the physiology of feeding, digestion and nutrient absorption by virtue of unusual and unique features of their biology. In their Commentary, Chris Glover and Alyssa Weinrauch discuss the key aspects of hagfish feeding and digestive processes, and highlight the pitfalls of this group as experimental organisms.
Image credit: Fredrik Christiansen.
Peter Madsen and his colleagues find that low-output infrequent calls in baleen whale mother–calf pairs may mediate contact between mother and calf, while decreasing the risk of detection by potential predators. Read their full research article here.
The Peter Baker Fellowship is for post-doctoral scientists interested in marine biology research, especially physiological research. It will provide living and travel expenses (up to £3,000) to spend approximately two months working at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, at any time of the year. Bench fees will be waived and a small sum may be available to assist with research expenses. This fund is held in trust by the Physiological Society, The Company of Biologists and the Marine Biological Association. Application deadline: 31 January 2020.
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!
The Company of Biologists provides grants to fund scientific meetings, workshops and conferences in the fields covered by our journals. Typically, meetings with fewer than 100 people may be granted up to £2,000, increasing up to £6,000 for about 400 people. The next deadline to apply is 2 September 2019.
preLights - Oxygen supply capacity in animals evolves to meet maximum demand at the current oxygen partial pressure regardless of size or temperature
Charlotte Nelson highlights a preprint from Brad Seibel and Curtis Deutsch, who found that, regardless of body mass or temperature, the capacity to supply oxygen is tightly matched to the maximum evolved demand at the highest reliably available oxygen pressure experienced by the species.