Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: As the largest extant fish species, tropical whale sharks defy the general principle that size increases with latitude. This exceptionalism is likely enabled by bulk filtration of patchy, seasonally available zooplankton. Cade and colleagues (jeb224402) used multi-day accelerometer tags to compare the swimming effort expended by whale sharks during putative foraging and non-foraging periods. At the surface, whale sharks use high-amplitude, fast tail beats during low-speed, multi-hour foraging bouts, yet their large size suggests a low metabolic cost. This high foraging efficiency implies that disturbances during active feeding may have an outsized impact on the life history of this outsized animal. Photo credit: Simon Pierce.
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OUTSIDE JEB
REVIEW
Molecular mechanisms of biomineralization in marine invertebrates
Summary: Understanding how urchins, molluscs and corals extract calcium from seawater to make their skeletons, and the factors that affect this process, improve predictions on their future success under climate change.
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Absolute ethanol intake predicts ethanol preference in Drosophila melanogaster
Summary: Preferential consumption of ethanol-containing medium can be established on base diets that elicit greater feeding, suggesting that a threshold of ethanol intake is required for developing ethanol preference.
Retinal slip compensation of pitch-constrained blue bottle flies flying in a flight mill
Summary: When flying in a flight mill, flies with constrained body pitch compensate external visual perturbations applied to their retinal slip by changing their flight speed.
Membrane peroxidation index and maximum lifespan are negatively correlated in fish of the genus Nothobranchius
Summary: Phospholid content and peroxidation index of cell membranes is lower in Nothobranchius fish species with a higher maximum lifespan potential, in accordance with the longevity–homeoviscous adaptation (LHA) theory of ageing.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Whale sharks increase swimming effort while filter feeding, but appear to maintain high foraging efficiencies
Summary: Tail beat kinematics and foraging behavior of filter feeding whale sharks off the Yucatán Peninsula indicate that stroke effort increases with filter feeding, particularly at the surface.
Floral vibrations by buzz-pollinating bees achieve higher frequency, velocity and acceleration than flight and defence vibrations
Summary: Despite being produced by the same set of muscles, the vibrations bumblebees produce during buzz-pollination, defensive buzzing and flight all significantly differ in their biomechanical properties.
Role of the gut microbiome in mediating standard metabolic rate after dietary shifts in the viviparous cockroach, Diploptera punctata
Summary: Dietary shifts resulted in differential emergences of microbial taxa in the gut microbiomes of Diploptera punctata, impacting microbial essential amino acid provisioning functions that may underlie differences in determined host metabolic phenotypes, measured as standard metabolic rate.
Secondary osteon structural heterogeneity between the cranial and caudal cortices of the proximal humerus in white-tailed deer
Summary: Cortical bone mineral content has a stronger impact on tissue stiffness than cortical bone structure (Haversian system and central canal size).
Terrestrial acclimation and exercise lead to bone functional response in Polypterus senegalus pectoral fins
Highlighted Article: When amphibious fish (Polypterus senegalus) spend a prolonged time on land, their fin bones change shape and composition in response to increased mechanical loading.
Fish embryo vulnerability to combined acidification and warming coincides with a low capacity for homeostatic regulation
Summary: The gastrulation period represents a critical transition from inherited (maternal) defenses to active homeostatic regulation, which facilitates enhanced resilience of later stages to environmental factors.
Thermo-TRPs and gut microbiota are involved in thermogenesis and energy metabolism during low temperature exposure of obese mice
Summary: Thermo-TRPs and gut microbiota are involved in attenuating diet-induced obesity during low temperature exposure in C57BL/6J mice.
Responses of activity rhythms to temperature cues evolve in Drosophila populations selected for divergent timing of eclosion
Summary: Selection for divergent phasing of eclosion rhythms of Drosophila melanogaster results in altered sensitivity of activity rhythms to temperature cues, highlighting common circadian clock organisational principles.
Eyelid squinting during food pecking in pigeons
Summary: Pecking pigeons do not fully close their eyes when their beak tip approaches a seed but instead narrow their eyelids to a slit, improving their vision by squinting.
Reduced exploration capacity despite brain volume increase in warm-acclimated common minnow
Highlighted Article: In fish, thermal metabolic compensation in response to warming under predicted climate change scenarios may alter brain morphology and cognition, potentially causing fitness impairment.
Androgenic modulation of extraordinary muscle speed creates a performance trade-off with endurance
Highlighted Article: Androgenic signalling boosts muscle twitch speed to support the production of elaborate display behaviour, triggering a trade-off with endurance. This encumbers display length, highlighting a performance cost of steroid action.
Body temperature stability in the whale shark, the world's largest fish
Highlighted Article: Whale sharks, the world's largest fish, can dive over 1000 m and have the advantage of maintaining relatively stable body temperatures because of their high thermal inertia.
Spectral sensitivity of cone vision in the diurnal murid Rhabdomys pumilio
Summary: The visual spectral sensitivity of a diurnal rodent, Rhabdomys pumilio, is biased against UV-A wavelengths thanks to lens filtering, but not cone spectral sensitivity.
The effect of ambient oxygen on the thermal performance of a cockroach, Nauphoeta cinerea
Summary: Oxygen availability does not explain moderate- to long-term thermal performance in Nauphoeta cinerea, which raises further questions about the generality of the OCLTT hypothesis.
CORRESPONDENCE
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.