ontogeny
- Multimodal mechanosensing enables treefrog embryos to escape egg-predators
Highlighted Article: Red-eyed treefrog embryos use both their lateral line and vestibular systems to sense the disturbance cues in egg-predator attacks that inform escape-hatching decisions.
- Life stages differ in plasticity to temperature fluctuations and uniquely contribute to adult phenotype in Onthophagus taurus dung beetles
Summary: Life stages differ in thermal plasticity to increased temperature fluctuations, which may affect how some organisms fare under a warming climate.
- Canopy parkour: movement ecology of post-hatch dispersal in a gliding nymphal stick insect, Extatosoma tiaratum
Summary: To effectively disperse from the forest floor into canopies, diurnally hatched stick insect nymphs use gravity and visual cues to navigate, jump to cross gaps and respond to threat or perturbation with self-dropping.
- Daily energy expenditure in white storks is lower after fledging than in the nest
Summary: Continuous measurement of heart rate and fine-scale movements of free-living juvenile white storks (Ciconia ciconia) using on-board bio-loggers reveals individual and environmental factors relating to daily mean heart rate.
- Visual system development of the spotted unicornfish, Naso brevirostris (Acanthuridae)
Summary: Retinal topography and opsin gene expression change during ontogeny of the spotted unicornfish, Naso brevirostris, with the largest changes occurring from the larval to the juvenile stage.
- Quantifying the acid–base status of dragonflies across their transition from breathing water to breathing air
Summary: Dragonflies show a moderate rise in hemolymph bicarbonate as they transition from water breathing to air breathing, while the non-bicarbonate buffer capacity of their hemolymph is low relative to that of other insects.
- 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.
- Ontogenetic scaling of pelvic limb muscles, tendons and locomotor economy in the ostrich (Struthio camelus)
Summary: The ontogenetic scaling of muscle–tendon morphology and tendon material properties suggests maintained or relatively increased muscle force generation, increased elastic energy storage and locomotor economy in adult versus juvenile ostriches.
- Ontogenetic change in predicted acoustic pressure sensitivity in larval red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus)
Summary: Computed tomography imagery in a finite-element model predicts that larval fishes detect acoustic pressure but that this pressure sensitivity declines ontogenetically, likely altering the detection and use of acoustic cues.
- Within-individual behavioural variability and division of labour in social insects
Summary: This Commentary discusses the sources of within-individual behavioural variability in social insects and considers the relationship between colony size and behavioural flexibility.