INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
- A mobility-based classification of closed kinematic chains in biomechanics and implications for motor control
Summary: Using examples of biomechanical systems from fishes, birds and humans, this Commentary shows how mechanical linkages can be created or modified dynamically during behaviors in order to improve motor control.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
- Huffin’ and puffin: seabirds use large bills to dissipate heat from energetically demanding flight
Highlighted Article: Tufted puffins have high flight costs. Infrared imaging and heat exchange calculations suggest that they use their large bills to dissipate excess metabolic heat after flying.
- Passive muscle tension increases in proportion to intramuscular fluid volume
Summary: Passive tension in skeletal muscle increases in proportion to tissue fluid volume, suggesting that natural fluctuations in water content may influence muscle performance in vivo.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- A quick tongue: older honey bees dip nectar faster to compensate for mouthpart structure deterioration
Highlighted Article: Average length of the honey bee glossal setae decreases with age but nectar intake rate remains constant through behavioral compensation, in which nectar dipping rate is increased.
- Environmental entrainment demonstrates natural circadian rhythmicity in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis
Summary: The subtidal anemone Nematostella vectensis exhibits strong circadian behavioral rhythms following entrainment in natural conditions. Corresponding transcriptional rhythms suggest that solar radiation drives physiological cycles in this sediment-dwelling animal.
- Cardiac remodeling in response to embryonic crude oil exposure involves unconventional NKX family members and innate immunity genes
Summary: RNA sequencing reveals changes in gene expression linked to altered heart structure in juvenile fish as a consequence of embryonic exposure to low, environmentally realistic levels of crude oil.
- How do red-eyed treefrog embryos sense motion in predator attacks? Assessing the role of vestibular mechanoreception
Highlighted Article: Red-eyed treefrogs' hatching responses to predator attacks, vibration playbacks and egg jiggling appear when vestibular function develops. Ear development may be a key limiting factor in the onset of mechanosensory-cued hatching.
- Red coloration varies with dietary carotenoid access and nutritional condition in kittiwakes
Summary: The main mechanism limiting the full expression of carotenoid-based color signals varies with environmental conditions in a red-colored seabird.
- Future ocean warming may prove beneficial for the northern population of European seabass, but ocean acidification will not
Summary: Heart mitochondria of juvenile European sea bass are impaired by acute warming, but seem to benefit from conditioning to warmer temperatures; they are only marginally impacted by ocean acidification.
- Bilateral auditory processing studied by selective cold-deactivation of cricket hearing organs
Summary: Peltier devices selectively cold-block the activity of cricket ears, and allow the study of bilateral auditory processing and the effect of reciprocal inhibition in central auditory neurons.
- Vision in the snapping shrimp Alpheus heterochaelis
Summary: Morphological, physiological and behavioral approaches demonstrate for the first time that the eyes of snapping shrimp provide spatial vision.
- Embryonic developmental oxygen preconditions cardiovascular functional response to acute hypoxic exposure and maximal β-adrenergic stimulation of anesthetized juvenile American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
Summary: Juvenile alligators that experienced embryonic hypoxia have a faster rate of ventricular relaxation, greater left ventricle stroke volume and greater cardiac power following β-adrenergic stimulation, compared with juvenile alligators that did not experience embryonic hypoxia.
- Mechanical and optical properties of the femoral chordotonal organ in beetles (Coleoptera)
Summary: Unique among insects, the femoral chordotonal organs in many beetles have a special design of the apodeme for amplification of dynamic signals.
- Honeybees generalize among pollen scents from plants flowering in the same seasonal period
Summary: The proboscis extension response of honey bees was conditioned using different pollen scents, then tested with novel pollen scents. Honey bees generalized the pollen scents from plants that share the same flowering period.
- Thoracic adaptations for ventilation during locomotion in humans and other mammals
Highlighted Article: Experimental and comparative data show that humans and other animals selected for long-distance running convergently evolved adaptations to augment diaphragmatic breathing with thoracic movements.
- Meat ants cut more trail shortcuts when facing long detours
Summary: Ant colonies adjust their trail-clearing effort context dependently by preferentially creating shortcuts when alternative detours are long.
- C-Type allatostatin and its putative receptor from the mud crab serve an inhibitory role in ovarian development
Summary: C-type allatostatin and its receptor are involved in the regulation of ovarian development in Scylla paramamosain, possibly by directly inhibiting the uptake of yolk by oocytes and obstructing oocyte growth.
- Effects of FABP knockdown on flight performance of the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria
Summary: Fatty acid binding protein (FABP) is an essential element of skeletal muscle energy metabolism in vivo; its knockdown in locust flight muscle prevents extended flight activity.
- Object colours, material properties and animal signals
Summary: A measure of colour based on the object colour solid, which is mostly independent of species, gives an insight into the psychology of animal signals.
- Developmental delay in shivering limits thermogenic capacity in juvenile high-altitude deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus)
Summary: Postnatal development of shivering thermogenesis is initially delayed in high-altitude deer mice; the highly aerobic muscle phenotype and superior thermogenic capacity characteristic of adults does not mature until after weaning.
- Directional and frequency characteristics of auditory neurons in Culex male mosquitoes
Summary: In mosquitoes, paired/triplet auditory neurons, responding to opposite directions of the sound wave and tuned to different frequencies, occur in every angular sector of the Johnston's organ, allowing the production of complex auditory behaviors.
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.