REVIEWS
- Olfactory navigation in aquatic gastropods
Summary: Review of the past research and future prospects for understanding odour-based navigation behaviour by gastropods, covering behavioural patterns, navigational strategies and neural underpinnings.
- Behavioural and neuronal basis of olfactory imprinting and kin recognition in larval fish
Summary: This Review focuses on olfactory imprinting processes that numerous species use to recognize kin or their natal environment later in life.
- There and back again: natal homing by magnetic navigation in sea turtles and salmon
Summary: New findings indicate that long-distance natal homing in salmon and sea turtles involves an ability to navigate back to the magnetic signature of the home area.
- The internal maps of insects
Summary: Insect behaviour can be explained as a combination of path integration, vector memory and view memory, but what is the evidence that these geometric capabilities form an integrated map?
- The genetics and epigenetics of animal migration and orientation: birds, butterflies and beyond
Summary: This Review summarizes our understanding of the genetics and epigenetics of animal migration and outlines a vision to harness both technical advances and comparative approaches to move the field forward.
- Non-Euclidean navigation
Summary: The behavioral evidence for Euclidean cognitive maps is unpersuasive. Recent experiments indicate that human spatial knowledge is better described by a labeled graph, which incorporates local distance and angle information.
- Using on-board sound recordings to infer behaviour of free-moving wild animals
Summary: We review new possibilities for monitoring the behaviour of wild animals in the field using on-board audio recordings.
- The potential of virtual reality for spatial navigation research across the adult lifespan
Summary: This Review describes how virtual reality is used to study spatial navigation across species and discusses the benefits and challenges when using it in older age groups.
- The insect central complex and the neural basis of navigational strategies
Summary: Neural circuits of the insect central complex are involved in guiding multiple navigation strategies, and the emerging core circuit for navigational decisions might provide an overarching framework of central-complex function.
- Celestial navigation in Drosophila
Summary: In this Review, we describe how the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, uses the position of the sun and the pattern of polarized skylight to maintain a constant heading during long-distance dispersal flights.
- The brain behind straight-line orientation in dung beetles
Summary: Insights into the neural mechanisms underlying compass orientation in dung beetles are placed into the context of the mechanisms of other insects.
- Origin and role of path integration in the cognitive representations of the hippocampus: computational insights into open questions
Summary: Path integration is one of the fundamental computations giving rise to the cognitive map and possibly other non-spatial representations in the hippocampal formation and its subcortical afferents.
- Merging information in the entorhinal cortex: what can we learn from robotics experiments and modeling?
Summary: Grid cells related to path integration and vision are explained as modulo projections of different cortical activities. The entorhinal cortex appears as a generic merging tool building hash codes.
- Navigation and the developing brain
Summary: Spatial development in humans takes a decade or more to unfold, and involves tuning initial systems in response to changing motor capacities and environmental feedback.
- The navigational nose: a new hypothesis for the function of the human external pyramid
Summary: The human nose respires and sniffs yet current theory addresses only its respiratory function; the nose may also allow stereo olfaction and may have evolved for this in early Homo.
This issue
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Other journals from The Company of Biologists
The Company of Biologists commits to the Transformative Journal approach
The Company of Biologists is the first not-for-profit publisher to commit to this approach. The Company's three hybrid journals - Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology - have chosen the 'transformative' route towards Open Access. Find out more in this interview with Claire Moulton, Publisher at The Company of Biologists and on our dedicated Transformative Journals page.
Handing over the reins
The start of August signals a change for Journal of Experimental Biology as we say a fond farewell to Editor-in-Chief of 25 years Hans Hoppeler and extend a warm welcome to his successor, Craig Franklin.
Minute mecysmaucheniid spider triggers fastest trap-jaws
Research by Hannah Wood shows that Zearchaea spiders use a spring loaded catapult mechanism to slam closed the fastest spider jaws on the planet, at an astonishing speed of 18.2 m s−1.
In the field: an interview with Sandra Binning and Dominique Roche
Together, Sandra Binning and Dominique Roche investigate how animals respond to environmental stress. In an interview, they talk about taking their children into the field and keeping safe while working in marine locations.
Surviving anoxia: the maintenance of energy production and tissue integrity during anoxia and reoxygenation
In their Review, Georgina Cox and Todd Gillis use knowledge gained from studies of anoxia-tolerant species to identify common strategies and novel solutions for the challenges of anoxia exposure.