Issues
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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: Does adapting to walk economically require conscious, or explicit, attention? Or rather, do we adapt automatically, or implicitly? McAllister et al. (jeb242655) explored the contributions of implicit and explicit processes in energy optimization during human walking. Even when distracted by a secondary task, participants adapted to walk economically, suggesting that energy optimization involves implicit processing. Understanding the cognitive nature of energy optimization has direct implications in clinical rehabilitation and assistive device design. If we don't need to think about walking economically – if it occurs implicitly – then our attention can be directed toward other objectives. Artwork credit: Megan McAllister.
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INSIDE JEB
OUTSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
Sulfide metabolism and the mechanism of torpor
Summary: This Commentary provides an update on recent advances on the role of hydrogen sulfide in mammalian hibernation, particularly on the mechanisms for the suppression of mitochondrial respiration during torpor.
REVIEW
The neuroethology of avian brood parasitism
Summary: Brood parasites are an underutilized resource for understanding enduring questions in neuroethology. This Review explores how studies of brood parasites provide new insights into the neurobiological basis of social behaviors.
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Maintained barostatic regulation of heart rate in digesting snakes (Boa constrictor)
Summary: Snakes maintain fully functional blood pressure regulation during digestion despite the pronounced tachycardia associated with specific dynamic action (SDA).
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Moths sense but do not learn flower odors with their proboscis during flower investigation
Highlighted Article: The hawkmoth Manduca sexta is able to detect odors with the tip of its tongue: this ‘second nose’ is not used for olfactory learning during flower investigation.
Energy optimization during walking involves implicit processing
Highlighted Article: People can adapt to energy optimal walking patterns without being consciously aware they are doing so. This allows people to discover economical gaits while preserving attentional resources for other tasks.
Energy expenditure across immune challenge severities in a lizard: consequences for innate immunity, locomotor performance and oxidative status
Summary: Simulated infection of adult side-blotched lizards via lipopolysaccharide injection shows that differences in immune challenge severity can lead to differences in energy expenditure, innate immune activity and locomotor performance.
Elastic energy storage in seahorses leads to a unique suction flow dynamics compared with other actinopterygians
Highlighted Article: Seahorses generate high suction flow and head rotation speeds with temporal patterns that differ from those of other actinopterygians; variation in snout length results in a trade-off between pivot and suction feeding.
Mitochondrial responses towards intermittent heat shocks in the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica
Summary: Intermittent heat shock in oysters acclimated to normal and high temperature modulates mitochondrial and reactive oxygen species metabolism, indicating the important role of acclimation in their capacity to adjust to thermal challenges.
In vivo human gracilis whole-muscle passive stress–sarcomere strain relationship
Summary: The first direct measurements of human muscle passive mechanical properties and associated sarcomere lengths demonstrate that muscles are not simply scaled versions of muscle fibers, which is critical for creating accurate biomechanical models.
How to build a puncture- and breakage-resistant eggshell? Mechanical and structural analyses of avian brood parasites and their hosts
Highlighted Article: Brood parasitic cowbirds that puncture host eggs produce stronger eggshells than do both host species and those cowbirds that remove host eggs. This study characterizes the microstructural bases in which hosts' and different parasites' eggs differ from each other.
Timing of increased temperature sensitivity coincides with nervous system development in winter moth embryos
Summary: Temperature sensitivity of insect embryonic development rate increased after nervous system development. This could be a target of selection in the genetic adaptation of the winter moth to climate change.
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.