INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
- The engineering of the giant dragonflies of the Permian: revised body mass, power, air supply, thermoregulation and the role of air density
Summary: The giant dragonflies of the Permian would have rapidly overheated during flight. It is proposed that thermal equilibrium could have been maintained through aspects of physiology, behaviour and higher air density.
REVIEW
- Invertebrate serotonin receptors: a molecular perspective on classification and pharmacology
Summary: Many 5-HT receptors have been characterized at the molecular level in diverse invertebrate species. This review considers how to classify and name these heterologously expressed receptors and compares their pharmacological properties.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
- Blood pressure in the Greenland shark as estimated from ventral aortic elasticity
Summary: Greenland shark arterial blood pressure is predicted to be very low (2.3–2.8kPa), based on the elasticity of its ventral aorta, supporting the idea that this species has a low aerobic metabolism.
- Individual differences in heart rate reveal a broad range of autonomic phenotypes in a free-living seabird population
Summary: Streaked shearwaters show consistent individual differences in autonomic activity that persist even across years and are driven by individual differences in parasympathetic ‘rest-and-digest’ activity, not sympathetic ‘fight-or-flight’ activity.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Foot-propelled swimming kinematics and turning strategies in common loons
Summary: As expert foot-based swimmers, loons paddle by combining ankle flexion and knee rotation. Loons display head-bobbing, likely enhancing vision, and induce turns using their wings, tail, body and feet.
- Corticosterone implants produce stress-hyporesponsive birds
Summary: Corticosterone implants decrease the adrenocortical response to stress in birds and baseline corticosterone levels in white storks.
- Ocean acidification does not limit squid metabolism via blood oxygen supply
Summary: Based on experimental and theoretical evidence, it seems unlikely that ocean acidification will impair blood oxygen supply in active squid.
- Accumulation and excretion of manganese ion in the kidney of Mytilus galloprovincialis
Summary: Mytilus galloprovincialis is able to concentrate 15 times more manganese ion in the kidney compared with concentrations in ambient seawater, and has been shown to excrete urine voluntarily.
- Angling-induced injuries have a negative impact on suction feeding performance and hydrodynamics in marine shiner perch, Cymatogaster aggregata
Summary: Injuries to the mouth caused by fishing hooks reduce suction feeding performance in marine surfperch by altering the flow of water into the mouth during suction.
- Multiple optic gland signaling pathways implicated in octopus maternal behaviors and death
Editors' Choice: Octopus optic glands employ a multiplex progression of signaling molecules to regulate maternal behaviors.
- Wing inertia as a cause of aerodynamically uneconomical flight with high angles of attack in hovering insects
Summary: Examination of the impact of wing inertia on the power requirement and flapping angle of attack, based on 3D free-hovering flight wing kinematics of a beetle Allomyrina dichotoma, using a theoretical blade element model.
- Do squid breathe through their skin?
Summary: Contrary to a 30-year-old well-regarded hypothesis, squid do not obtain oxygen across their skin to supply underlying tissues.
- Nosemosis control in European honey bees, Apis mellifera, by silencing the gene encoding Nosema ceranae polar tube protein 3
Summary: Use of RNAi-based therapeutics for nosemosis disease in honey bees.
- Channeling vorticity: modeling the filter-feeding mechanism in silver carp using μCT and 3D PIV
Summary: The greatly modified filtering plates of silver carp produce strong, directed vortical flow during filter feeding, which is thought to potentially increase feeding efficiency.
- How the egg rolls: a morphological analysis of avian egg shape in the context of displacement dynamics
Summary: Demonstration of a relationship between the shape of calcareous eggshells and their physical displacement by rolling to illuminate the adaptive value of morphology in the context of nesting habitat.
- Heterogeneity of neuromasts in a fish without lateral line canals: the pufferfish (Takifugu obscurus) model
Summary: Three types of neuromast (tall, medium and short, belonging to two functional groups) have been identified on the lateral line system of pufferfish (Takifugu obscurus) and encode different aspects of the hydrodynamic stimulus.
- The low-down on sleeping down low: pigeons shift to lighter forms of sleep when sleeping near the ground
Highlighted Article: Birds decrease REM sleep in a similar manner to mammals when sleeping under conditions of higher perceived predation risk.
- Oxidative cost of interspecific hybridization: a case study of two Triturus species and their hybrids
Summary: Hybrid individuals of crested newts had higher values of anti-oxidant parameters and a less integrated anti-oxidant defence system in comparison with parental species, indicating a higher investment in maintaining oxidative balance.
- Aerodynamic characteristics along the wing span of a dragonfly Pantala flavescens
Summary: Interwing aerodynamic interactions vary across the span of the high aspect ratio wings of dragonflies. This spanwise variation in aerodynamics could be exploited in the design of micro-air vehicles.
- Evidence for spatial vision in Chiton tuberculatus, a chiton with eyespots
Summary: Certain chitons have hundreds to thousands of eyespots (∼35 µm) distributed across their shell plates; these eyespots are associated with spatial vision.
- Anti-diuretic activity of a CAPA neuropeptide can compromise Drosophila chill tolerance
Summary: Many insects lose ion balance in the cold. CAPA neuropeptide can slow ion transport and reduce the cold tolerance of a fly.
- How does the environment affect fighting? The interaction between extrinsic fighting ability and resource value during contests
Highlighted Article: Environmental variation can affect an individual's willingness and capacity to engage in fights over indivisible resources.
- Thermal physiological traits and plasticity of metabolism are sensitive to biogeographic breaks in a rock-pool marine shrimp
Summary: Thermal performance, but not the metabolic rate, of a widely distributed species varies linearly with latitude, whereas thermal limits and plasticity of metabolism are affected by biogeographic breaks.
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.