Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: Oxidative stress is a major cost of and constraint on behavioural and life-history strategies. Research on the link between oxidative stress and reproductive tactics (e.g. parental care, demonstrated here by a female raccoon Procyon lotor with her pup) has yielded seemingly conflicting evidence. Costantini (jeb194688) discusses often-neglected features that reconcile some of those inconsistencies, suggests new definitions of oxidative stress and proposes the redox signalling hypothesis to highlight that a trade-off between signalling and oxidative stress underlies the regulation of reactive oxygen species production and their subsequent impact on reproduction and other life-history traits. Photo credit: David Costantini.
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INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
Understanding diversity in oxidative status and oxidative stress: the opportunities and challenges ahead
Summary: This Commentary highlights the distinction between biochemical and biological definitions of oxidative stress, discusses issues to consider when designing experiments to investigate oxidative stress, and proposes the ‘redox signalling hypothesis’ of life history.
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Acoustic crypsis in southern right whale mother–calf pairs: infrequent, low-output calls to avoid predation?
Highlighted Article: Low-output infrequent calls in baleen whale mother–calf pairs may mediate contact between mother and calf, while decreasing the risk of detection by potential predators.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Energy turnover in mammalian skeletal muscle in contractions mimicking locomotion: effects of stimulus pattern on work, impulse and energetic cost and efficiency
Summary: Muscle can be a motor (work output) or a brake (work absorption), or can simply exert force; these functions and their costs are relevant to locomotion. This versatility is revealed by a varying stimulation pattern.
Shearing overbite and asymmetrical jaw motions facilitate food breakdown in a freshwater stingray, Potamotrygon motoro
Highlighted Article: Chewing in a freshwater stingray includes overbite cycles that exert shear forces on the food in a manner convergent with mammalian mastication.
Straight arm walking, bent arm running: gait-specific elbow angles
Highlighted Article: The stereotyped difference in elbow angle between walking and running in humans is linked to a mechanical tradeoff between shoulder and elbow muscle torque.
Molecular mechanisms for intestinal HCO3− secretion and its regulation by guanylin in seawater-acclimated eels
Summary: The intestinal hormone guanylin is shown to stimulate bicarbonate secretion into the lumen through NKCC2 inhibition and precipitate high Ca/Mg ions in seawater in the eel intestine, which enhances water absorption and promotes seawater adaptation.
Characterization of an evolutionarily conserved calcitonin signalling system in a lophotrochozoan, the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas)
Summary: Functional characterization of a vertebrate-type calcitonin signalling system in a protostome.
Evaluating the physiological significance of hypoxic hyperventilation in larval zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Summary: Larval zebrafish are able to regulate their hypoxic ventilatory response, which significantly contributes to overall oxygen uptake under hypoxic conditions.
Developmental plasticity in metabolism but not in energy reserve accumulation in a seasonally polyphenic butterfly
Summary: The switch between diapause and direct development results in developmental pre-diapause plasticity in life history and metabolism but not in reserve accumulation in a seasonally polyphenic butterfly.
Hornets possess long-lasting olfactory memories
Summary: Hornet queens, drones and workers have excellent olfactory learning that can persist for up to 30 days in queens and drones.
The role of lateral optic flow cues in hawkmoth flight control
Summary: Hummingbird hawkmoths use optic flow similarly to flies and bees to control their position, but not their speed, in flight tunnel experiments.
Salmonid gene expression biomarkers indicative of physiological responses to changes in salinity and temperature, but not dissolved oxygen
Summary: Gene expression biomarkers associated with salinity stress and thermal stress, but not hypoxic stress, exist in salmon gill tissue. Biomarkers were also associated with mortality.
Upstroke-based acceleration and head stabilization are the norm for the wing-propelled swimming of alcid seabirds
Summary: Alcids accelerate during both the upstroke and downstroke when swimming in shallow water, contrary to previous kinematic studies, but head stabilization limits the detectability of the true stroke–acceleration pattern.
Section-specific H+ flux in renal tubules of fasted and fed goldfish
Summary: Models for acid-base regulation by the goldfish kidney based on SIET measurements indicate a major role for proximal tubules in H+ secretion and HCO3− reabsorption, in contrast to HCO3− reabsorption and NH3/NH4+ secretion in distal and connecting tubules.
Influence of stretch magnitude on the stretch–shortening cycle in skinned muscle fibres
Summary: Increasing the magnitude of stretch results in a greater stretch–shortening cycle effect and an increased force at steady state following the stretch, probably because of the greater residual force enhancement.
Chemically induced plasticity in early life history of Palaemon argentinus: are chemical alarm cues conserved within palaemonid shrimps?
Summary: Exposure to infochemicals from crushed conspecifics and heterospecifics alters embryonic developmental time, size and morphology of the first larval instar in a palaemonid shrimp, indicating that alarm cues are conserved in this taxon, providing embryos with an innate recognition of alarm cues.
Sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA) activity during the transition to endothermy in an altricial bird
Highlighted Article: Pectoralis muscle SERCA activity increased as blackbird nestlings reached thermal independence, but declined at older ages, possibly owing to adaptive muscle remodeling. There was no effect of diet on SERCA activity.
Ocean acidification affects calcareous tube growth in adults and reared offspring of serpulid polychaetes
Summary: Investigation of calcified tube growth of Serpulidae under low-pH conditions indicates that ocean acidification will negatively affect the initiation and persistence of both biofouling and epiphytic polychaete tube worms.
2023 JEB Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist and winner
The JEB Editors are delighted to announce the shortlisted authors for the 2023 JEB Outstanding Paper Prize. Read the winning paper - Tiny spies: mosquito antennae are sensitive sensors for eavesdropping on frog calls - by Hoover Pantoja-Sanchez and Brian Leavell from Ximena Bernal's lab at Purdue University, USA.
JEB Science Communication Workshop for ECRs
If you’re an early-career researcher interested in science communication and are attending the SEB Annual Conference in Prague this summer, come a day early and join the JEB Editors at a sci comm workshop to learn the key writing skills needed to promote your research to a broad audience beyond your peers (1 July at 14.30-17.30). Places are limited to 24 attendees, and applicants should apply through the SEB registration page by 30 April 2024.
Bridging the gap between controlled conditions and natural habitats in understanding behaviour
Novel technologies enable behavioural experiments with non-model species, in naturalistic habitats and with underexplored behaviours. In their Commentary, Scholz and colleagues discuss how to obtain a deeper understanding of the natural ecology and lifestyle of study animals.
How a macrourid fish remains buoyant at depths it should be unable to reach
Fish with swimbladders should not be capable of descending below 7200m, but when Alan Jamieson and Todd Bond spotted a macrourid fish at 7259m, they knew they had seen something miraculous. Working with Imantes Priede, they reveal that the swimbladder of a 1 kg fish could hold 37.9 g of oxygen, sufficient to offset the weight of the fish's bones, and take 221-440 days to fill, which is plausible because it takes years for the fish to descend to such depths.
ECR Workshop on Positive Peer Review
Are you an ECR looking for tips on how to write concise, astute and useful manuscript reviews? If so, join the JEB Editors at a 2-hour JEB-sponsored Workshop on Positive Peer Review at the Canadian Society of Zoologists annual meeting in Moncton on 9 May 2024 at 13.00-15.00. There are 25 spaces for ECRs and selection is first come, first serve. To sign up, check the ECR Workshop box when you register for the CSZ meeting.