Issues

Summary: Bank voles selected for high swim-induced aerobic metabolism over 13 generations show increased hindlimb muscle mass, but the muscle fibre characteristics remain unaffected.

Highlighted Article: Acclimating fish to warm temperatures causes a decrease in the size of an interlamellar cell mass, increasing gill surface area and improving hypoxia tolerance.

Summary: Exploitation of elastic recoil shapes the stance phase's segment movement in small birds; however, reducing the cost of locomotion is only a secondary movement criterion.

Summary: Songbirds elevate their tongues during song to change the acoustic properties of their vocal tracts.

Highlighted Article: Increased abrasiveness in the diet of voles, assessed by DMTA, could be caused by high phytolith concentration of plants in response to intense grazing, and could in turn help provoke vole population crashes.

Summary: Fluorescence resonance energy transfer analysis using recombinant sperm-activating peptides tagged with fluorescent proteins reveals that ligand-binding sites form clusters on the sperm plasma membrane.

Summary: Thermally induced modifications to free metabolite pools of amino and non-amino organic acids are characterised in a model system for reef-building corals, in both symbiont and host.

Summary: Elastic power delivered from ankle muscle-tendons during jumping in humans is aided by energy storage against body weight and proximal-distal sequencing of limb action, but not variable mechanical advantage, which may explain our modest jumping ability.

Highlighted Article: The zooplanktonic sea butterfly Limacina helicina ‘flies’ underwater using many of the same fluid dynamic ‘tricks’ that very small insects use to fly in air.

Summary: Killifish embryos enter into a developmental arrest called diapause II; the chromatin state differs between embryos prior to, during and post-diapause II.

Summary: Macroglossum stellatarum is the third flower-visiting insect for which the wavelength discrimination thresholds have been determined. Minima of discrimination were remarkable when compared with the honeybee and a tetrachromatic butterfly.

Summary: The post-hatch redox status of turtles is influenced by incubation temperature but not temperature fluctuations. Exposure to warmer temperatures for longer durations has negative consequences for hatchling antioxidant capacity.

Summary: A novel 3D critical window construct reveals how morphometry of Artemia is influenced by salinity level and the time of salinity exposure during development.

Highlighted Article: Zebrafish are capable of foraging in the dark. Experimental manipulation indicates that this ability is acquired by larvae that learn to identify the flow generated by swimming prey.

Summary: Torpor bouts are longer and deeper in uniformly torpid groups, but the presence of normothermic gliders keeps the nest temperature closer to the threshold for thermoregulatory heat production during torpor.

Summary: Cleaner shrimp – colourful, finely patterned animals – are probably colour blind and have coarse spatial resolution, and thus cannot resolve their own appearance or that of conspecifics.