Issues

Summary: We review the current literature on invertebrate bioacoustics and characteristics of anthropogenic noise to suggest a framework for understanding the potential impact of anthropogenic noise on terrestrial invertebrates.

Summary: Behavioural and physiological photoprotective mechanisms mitigate light-induced oxidative stress in the sea slug Elysia timida and may play an important role in the establishment of long-term choloroplast symbiosis.

Summary: The transmittance properties of the ocular media affect sensitivity to visual stimuli. Among frogs, the lenses of ranids are less transmissive than those of bufonids, decreasing sensitivity to ultraviolet light.

Summary: Birgus latro is the biggest land-living crab – a solitary animal that sometimes accumulates at food sources. A single food odor, acetoin, is sufficient to govern this behavior.

Summary: Larger leaf-cutter ants carry fragments that represent a lower proportion of their body mass compared with smaller ants, and therefore retain a higher proportion of their carrying capacity in reserve.

Summary: Basal levels of free and bound H₂S in Trachemys scripta elegans vary among tissues and upon acclimation to cold and anoxia, indicating that sulfide signaling may be critical in specific organs.

Summary: Accurately estimating peak oxygen uptake as a fish approaches fatigue in a swimming test must account for oxygen uptake being dynamic despite a constant, imposed workload.

Summary: Na⁺-Cl⁻ cotransporter expressed in the late distal tubule is one of the key renal factors that contributes to euryhalinity of the bull shark, Carcharhinus leucas.

Summary: Muscular apoptosis is not associated with oxidative stress in Weddell seals, suggesting that protection against diving-related increases in ROS generation is maintained into old age in these animals.

Summary: Interactions among oxidative stressors are predicted to impact performance. Reproduction prior to an oxidative stressor improved liver mitochondria coupling, while skeletal muscle mitochondrial density decreased.

Summary: Embryos of Austrofundulus limnaeus have a remarkable tolerance of reactive oxygen species that is likely supported by a combination of small molecule antioxidants and a high activity of antioxidant enzyme systems during early development.

Summary: Two temperate resident birds of differing body mass show phenotypic flexibility of their pectoralis muscle through differing mechanisms of muscle growth.

Summary: Phenotypic plasticity allows both major haemoglobin polymorphs of non-endothermic Atlantic cod to show ATP-induced reversed thermal sensitivity of oxygen binding at their warming southern distribution limit in the North East Atlantic.

Highlighted Article: Chemically defended wild poison frogs have gene expression and protein abundance differences across several tissue systems compared with poison frogs reared on an alkaloid-free diet.

Highlighted Article: Pattern electroretinography reveals that miniaturisation in ants reduces both contrast sensitivity and spatial resolving power.

Summary: Bedbugs show sexual dimorphism in attachment to smooth surfaces, consistent with sexual, but not natural, selection. Insect attachment devices may be under similarly rapid diversifying evolution as male genitalia.

Summary: Organismal performance is key for evolution, and morphology can evolve to optimize it. The link between performance and morphology should be tested to properly understand morphological variation.

Summary: Short-term physiological influences of parasite–host interactions in a wild population of Columbian ground squirrels were minimal, suggesting evolutionary cost minimization in both parasites and hosts.

Highlighted Article: Conformal surfaces of the peg and mesosternal lip within the click beetle hinge form a latch, which maintains the arched body position. The peg bending stiffness allows for very small deformations when latched against the mesosternal lip.

Summary: Maximum metabolic rates of fish display plasticity to intermittent exposure to warm water.

Summary: The interaural time differences that chickens can use for sound localization are significantly greater than their small head size suggests. Closed-field sound stimulation and skull openings can, however, produce complex artefacts.

Summary: Skeletal muscles with a deletion in titin exhibit no activation dependence of optimal length, but typical length dependence of Ca²⁺ sensitivity, suggesting that these properties are not necessarily linked.