Issues

Summary: Bradycardia (slowed heart rate) substantially improves hypoxia tolerance of eel myocardium, but its specific effect is dependent on extracellular bicarbonate and CO₂ concentrations.

Summary: An optimised method using menthol for the production of aposymbiotic Aiptasia sp. to further our understanding of the cnidarian–dinoflagellate symbiosis.

Highlighted Article: European shags adjust flight behavior to utilize wind power to minimize the cost of take-off and cruising flight.

Summary: Mantis shrimp raptorial strikes occur too quickly for real-time neural control; instead, control of the strike kinematics occurs before the strikes begin by varying extensor muscle activity and spring compression.

Summary: Field recordings of Eptesicus fuscus reveal highly intense source levels and stereotypic flight behaviour, potentially as a strategy to optimize foraging efficiency by minimizing sensory processing load.

Summary: Safety factors against skeletal failure differ between the forelimbs and hindlimbs of salamanders; this may relate to differing locomotor roles, potentially bearing on the invasion of land by vertebrates.

Highlighted Article: Diet differences lead to head shape dimorphism in European eel; this occurs at a much earlier stage than was originally thought.

Summary: Lizards that have lost their tail show kinematic signs of instability but run more quickly on narrow surfaces, suggesting that being stable is not essential to steady, high-performance locomotion.

Summary: The duration of early and later life stages of both parents (i.e. their life history) may have a significant influence on offspring traits in salmon.

Summary: Joints have evolved three times in coralline algae. Despite these independent origins, coralline joints are universally strong and extensible, which reflects the unique biomechanical challenges they face in wave-swept environments.

Summary: Multi-propulsor squids produce complex 3D vortex wake flows while swimming arms-first and tail-first, as revealed by 3D jet/fin force and propulsive efficiency measurements.

Summary: During breathing, rotation of the ribs in green iguanas is nearly hinge-like, despite costal joints that permit more complex motions.

Summary: Honey bees that begin foraging precociously perform poorly in a test of spatial memory compared with normal-aged foragers, implying there is a cost to this accelerated behavioural development in terms of reduced cognitive ability.

Highlighted Article: Fertility signals are not conserved in four species of Odontomachus trap-jaw ants: male signals are more conserved, but are species specific. Bioassays implicate newly discovered compounds as fertility signals for O. ruginodis.

Summary: Tongue projection powered by elastic recoil has greater performance and thermal robustness than projection powered by muscle contraction, as revealed by comparison of two species of salamanders with different projector muscle architecture.

Summary: The marine ciliate Favella sp., a model planktonic alveolate, has complex behavioral responses to prey and predators that are underpinned by sophisticated bioelectrical signaling mechanisms.

Summary: A left ventricular cavity and low stroke volume characterise the giraffe heart, resulting in typical mammalian left ventricular wall tensions but lowered cardiac output.