migration
- Physiology and behavior under food limitation support an escape, not preparative, response in the nomadic pine siskin (Spinus pinus)
Summary: Changes in body composition, activity and corticosterone during a captive experiment demonstrate that a nomadic avian migrant is not sensitive to changes in food availability, but rather escapes low-resource areas.
- Animal navigation: a noisy magnetic sense?
Summary: Magnetic orientation responses in animals are often weak and difficult to elicit experimentally. A possible explanation is that the magnetic compass is ‘noisy’ and cannot acquire precise magnetic information over short time periods.
- A sense of place: pink salmon use a magnetic map for orientation
Highlighted Article: Experiments suggest that the migration of pink salmon across the North Pacific may be driven largely by their use of geomagnetic map cues.
- Spectral organization of the compound eye of a migrating nymphalid, the chestnut tiger butterfly Parantica sita
Summary: Eyes of chestnut tiger butterflies have UV-, blue- and green-sensitive cells and they are also polarization sensitive, which may be useful for visual orientation during migration.
- Timing manipulations reveal the lack of a causal link across timing of annual-cycle stages in a long-distance migrant
Summary: Experimental manipulations show that pied flycatchers do not adjust the timing of their moult and migration to the termination of breeding.
- What determines the basal rate of metabolism?
Summary: Changes in BMR are principally determined by changes in the body composition of endotherms, the byproducts of which are the behavioral and ecological correlations with the availability and the expenditure of energy and other resources.
- Flight muscle protein damage during endurance flight is related to energy expenditure but not dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids in a migratory bird
Summary: Migration is oxidatively challenging for birds, and in yellow-rumped warblers, the oxidative challenge is strongly related to energy expenditure during flight but not dietary long-chain PUFA.
- 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.
- 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.
- Distinct physiological, biochemical and morphometric adjustments in the malaria vectors Anopheles gambiae and A. coluzzii as means to survive dry season conditions in Burkina Faso
Summary: A diverse and complex pattern of physiological mechanisms occurs in the Anopheles gambiae s.l. mosquito species and at the population level to cope with the harsh dry season.