INSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
- Improving estimates of diving lung volume in air-breathing marine vertebrates
Summary: Various factors affect our ability to accurately determine lung capacity during diving in air-breathing marine vertebrates; improving our estimates has implications for our understanding of the physiology and ecophysiology of these animals.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
- Environmental estrogen exposure disrupts sensory processing and nociceptive plasticity in the cephalopod Euprymna scolopes
Summary: In squid, exposure to water-borne environmental estrogens during development and throughout the juvenile period alters sensory processing and impairs appropriate behavioral responses to injury.
- The teleost fish intestine is a major oxalate-secreting epithelium
Summary: The discovery of extraordinarily high rates of net oxalate secretion by the teleost gut support its proposed role as the main pathway for eliminating this potentially toxic waste metabolite.
METHODS & TECHNIQUES
- A simple device to immobilize protists for electrophysiology and microinjection
Summary: A simple device that can reversibly immobilize ciliates for observation and manipulation.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
- Walking with added mass magnifies salient features of human foot energetics
Summary: Walking with added mass altered the force demand under which human legs normally operate, which highlights the versatility of human feet.
- Oxygen consumption of drift-feeding rainbow trout: the energetic tradeoff between locomotion and feeding in flow
Editors' Choice: Drift-feeding rainbow trout choose between swimming and refuging depending on the cost and success rate of prey capture across flow velocities.
- The sonar beam of Macrophyllum macrophyllum implies ecological adaptation under phylogenetic constraint
Summary: The long-legged bat (Macrophyllum macrophyllum) emits broader and more intense echolocation calls than its close relatives, but these are still less intense and have less flexibility in the emitted beam than ecologically similar vespertilionid bats.
- Pygmy mouse songs reveal anatomical innovations underlying acoustic signal elaboration in rodents
Highlighted Article: Northern pygmy mice produce an elaborate song through laryngeal whistling supported by a large air sac located inside the larynx, providing novel insight into the anatomical and physiological basis of signal elaboration.
- Functional effect of vaterite – the presence of an alternative crystalline structure in otoliths alters escape kinematics of the brown trout
Summary: The presence of vaterite alters fish behaviour in ways that are likely to decrease survival.
- Reduced ventricular excitability causes atrioventricular block and depression of heart rate in fish at critically high temperatures
Highlighted Article: Heat-induced heart failure in rainbow trout is due to atrio-ventricular block, an outcome from the opposite effects of temperature on depolarizing sodium (source) current and repolarizing potassium (sink) current of ventricular myocytes.
- Body temperature maintenance acclimates in a winter-tenacious songbird
Summary: Dark-eyed juncos maintain normothermia in the cold by modifying separate physiological traits at different time points in response to external temperature cues.
- Discrete modulation of anti-predatory and agonistic behaviors by sensory communication signals in juvenile crayfish
Summary: The exchange of sensory signals shapes future behavior of juvenile crayfish in response to threat signals and during intraspecific agonistic encounters.
- Vitellogenin offsets oxidative costs of reproduction in female painted dragon lizards
Summary: The quantity of vitellogenin yolk protein in female plasma is associated with oxidative state and not reproductive investment, providing a potential shield from free radicals during reproduction of egg-producing species.
- Effects of membrane fatty acid composition on cellular metabolism and oxidative stress in dermal fibroblasts from small and large breed dogs
Summary: Fibroblasts from small breed dogs and from both small and large breed dogs treated with oleic acid to decrease membrane saturation have lower maximal and basal oxygen consumption rates, respectively – traits associated with longer lifespans.
- Sex-specific molecular specialization and activity rhythm-dependent gene expression in honey bee antennae
Summary: Gene expression differences between honey bee male (specialist) and female (generalist) antennae identify differences in molecular specialization and reveal new genes involved in odorant detection.
- Spatial orientation based on multiple visual cues in non-migratory monarch butterflies
Summary: Non-migrating butterflies keep directed courses when viewing a simulated sun or panoramic scene. This suggests that they orient based on multiple visual cues independent of their migratory context.
- Impairment of mixed melanin-based pigmentation in parrots
Highlighted Article: We report the first evolutionary loss of mixed melanin-based animal pigmentation, showing absence of pheomelanin in parrot feathers. This is likely driven by color redundancy with psittacofulvins, exclusive parrot pigments.
- Physiological responses of wild zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to heatwaves
Highlighted Article: Zebra finches modify their metabolic, hygric and thermal response to environmental conditions during heatwaves to achieve more favourable heat and water balance, maintain body mass and avoid physiological stress.
- Stable mitochondrial CICIII2 supercomplex interactions in reptiles versus homeothermic vertebrates
Summary: The stability of supercomplexes of mitochondrial electron transport chain complexes I and III varies among vertebrates and is greatest in poikilothermic reptiles and weakest in endotherms.
- Immunosenescence and its influence on reproduction in a long-lived vertebrate
Summary: Painted turtles show differences in immune function across age, sex and sampling date, with some evidence of a trade-off between reproductive effort and immune function with age.
- Oxygen supply capacity in animals evolves to meet maximum demand at the current oxygen partial pressure regardless of size or temperature
Summary: Maximum and basal metabolic rate and their oxygen, temperature and size dependencies are mechanistically and quantifiably linked via the physiological capacity to supply oxygen.
- Mechanisms and consequences of flight polyphenisms in an outbreaking bark beetle species
Highlighted Article: The relationship between energy use during flight and host colonisation in the mountain pine beetle suggests potential selection mechanisms maintaining flight polyphenisms.
- Impact of temperature on bite force and bite endurance in the leopard iguana (Diplolaemus leopardinus) in the Andes Mountains
Summary: Leopard iguanas bite during prey capture, defense, sexual competition and copulation. Experimental data show they would maintain or improve bite performance at the higher temperatures projected in climate-change scenarios.
- Asymmetrical gait kinematics of free-ranging callitrichine primates in response to changes in substrate diameter and orientation
Summary: Free-ranging callitrichine primates adjust aspects of asymmetrical gait kinematics to promote stability when moving over arboreal substrates varying in diameter and orientation angle.
- A rapid intrinsic heart rate resetting response with thermal acclimation in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss
Summary: Intrinsic heart rate resetting occurs inconsistently with temperature acclimation in rainbow trout; however, it can occur rapidly, within 1 h of warming, without changes in mRNA expression of sinoatrial node proteins.
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Opportunities during challenging times
Editor-in-Chief Hans Hoppeler and Monitoring Editor Craig Franklin highlight new initiatives at JEB in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To continue advancing knowledge in the field, we are encouraging proposals for meta-analysis papers and timely Reviews and Commentaries within the JEB remit. New grant categories analogous to the Travelling Fellowships will fund collaborative data projects and the development of online resources for early-career researchers. Read their Editorial to find out more.
Cross-referee commenting
We are pleased to announce that JEB has expanded its peer review process to include cross-referee commenting. Read our News item for further details.
The OxymiR response to oxygen limitation
In their Review, Hanane Hadj-Moussa and Ken Storey assess OxymiRs in over 20 animal species. They reveal a lack of universal microRNA strategy, showing that instead there are species-specific responses to oxygen deprivation.
IReL joins The Company of Biologists Read & Publish deals
Researchers at nine institutions in Ireland can now publish an unlimited number of Open Access articles in JEB, immediately and at no cost to them, following a three-year Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and IReL. Find out more and see the growing list of participating institutions.
The Big Biology Podcast with Doug Fudge
Tune in to the latest JEB-sponsored episode of the Big Biology podcast. Art Woods and Marty Martin talk to Doug Fudge about all things slime as they discuss the hagfish and its slimy superpower.