CLASSICS
REVIEW
- Sensing in a noisy world: lessons from auditory specialists, echolocating bats
Summary: Researchers use echolocating bats – with their adaptations for sound production and reception – as models for understanding how animals sense and communicate in noisy environments.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
- Characterizing the distribution of steroid sulfatase during embryonic development: when and where might metabolites of maternal steroids be reactivated?
Summary: Steroid sulfatase activity hydrolyzes steroid sulfates back to an active form. Here we demonstrate steroid sulfatase is present in various tissues during embryonic development.
- Respiratory consequences of targeted losses of Hoxa5 gene function in mice
Summary: HOXA5 is a transcription factor broadly expressed in the respiratory system; Hoxa5 expression in the mesenchyme and phrenic motor neurons controls distinct aspects of respiratory development.
- Head orientation of walking blowflies is controlled by visual and mechanical cues
Summary: Both mechanical and visual cues contribute to gaze orientation during free walking in blowflies, and when visual cues are lacking, more weight is given to gravity.
- Low glucose availability stimulates progesterone production by mouse ovaries in vitro
Summary: Mouse ovaries respond directly to low glucose availability by increasing progesterone production; this may contribute to homeostatic processes that positively regulate blood glucose.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Pharmacological analysis of the transmembrane action potential configuration in myoepithelial cells of the spontaneously beating heart of the ascidian Styela rustica in vitro
Summary: The key role in the automaticity of the ascidian heart is played by the outward K+ currents, Na+ currents, activated hyperpolarization current If, and a current of unknown nature IX.
- Thermal strategies of king penguins during prolonged fasting in water
Summary: Maintenance of near-normothermic temperatures in peripheral tissues of king penguins when fasting in cold water suggests maintained perfusion, presumably to mobilize free fatty acids from subcutaneous adipose tissue.
- The opercular mouth-opening mechanism of largemouth bass functions as a 3D four-bar linkage with three degrees of freedom
Editors’ Choice: Extension of the traditional 2D four-bar linkage to a high-mobility, 3D four-bar linkage accurately predicts the motion of a mouth-opening mechanism in the skull of ray-finned fishes.
- Fighting over burrows: the emergence of dominance hierarchies in the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus)
Summary: Dominant Norway lobsters profit from their rank in a social hierarchy by gaining increased access to burrows and by reducing activity outside the shelters as the hierarchy emerges.
- Thermal tachypnea in avian embryos
Summary: Chicken embryos during the internal pipping phase (at a time when pulmonary ventilation initiates) are capable of responding to heat exposure by tachypnea.
- A new method to characterize function of the Drosophila heart by means of optical flow
Summary: The analysis of coherent movement in Drosophila is established as a suitable indicator of qualitative changes of the heart's beating characteristics, which improves the usefulness of Drosophila as model of cardiac diseases.
- Free-ranging dogs prefer petting over food in repeated interactions with unfamiliar humans
Summary: Free-ranging dogs are generally aversive towards making direct human contact for food. Interestingly, they show enhanced interactions with humans who provide them with positive social contact.
- Aversive learning of odor–heat associations in ants
Highlighted Article: A new protocol to study aversive conditioning in harnessed ants exploiting the natural aggressive mandible opening response shows that ants are capable of aversive learning.
- Myogenic activity and serotonergic inhibition in the chromatophore network of the squid Dosidicus gigas (family Ommastrephidae) and Doryteuthis opalescens (family Loliginidae)
Summary: A comparative physiological and immunohistochemical examination of coordinated activity among squid chromatophores in the absence of neural control and serotonin inhibition.
- Neuromuscular mechanisms of an elaborate wing display in the golden-collared manakin (Manacus vitellinus)
Summary: We pinpoint the main skeletal muscles associated with the production of an elaborate gestural courtship display in a tropical bird, the golden-collared manakin.
- Context-dependent chemosensory signaling, aggression and neural activation patterns in gravid female African cichlid fish
Summary: Gravid female cichlids show altered urine release and behavioral responses during inter- and intra-sexual social interactions. Brain activation patterns in socially relevant regions reveal context-dependent patterns.
- Durophagous biting in sea otters (Enhydra lutris) differs kinematically from raptorial biting of other marine mammals
Summary: Sea otters represent a transitional stage of aquatic adaptation and use a specialized durophagous raptorial biting mode characterized by large gapes, large gape angles and lack of lateral gape occlusion.
- Effects of food availability on metabolism, behaviour, growth and their relationships in a triploid carp
Summary: Food availability significantly affects physiological, behavioural and ecological processes in triploid carp by altering the trade-off between metabolism and growth.
- Functional classification of gill ionocytes and spatiotemporal changes in their distribution after transfer from seawater to freshwater in Japanese seabass
Summary: Gill ionocytes in Japanese seabass originate from undifferentiated cells in the filaments and expand their distribution to the lamellae during freshwater acclimation.
- The force-generation process in active muscle is strain sensitive and endothermic: a temperature-perturbation study
Summary: A temperature jump applied at the onset of ramp shortening enhanced force during the initial phase of force decline, indicating that cross-bridge force generation is both strain-sensitive and endothermic (absorbs heat).