Issues

Summary: The concept of safety factors as a biological ‘design’ principle was first articulated in 1906 in physiology and medicine, foreshadowing the concept's rediscovery in comparative biomechanics and comparative physiology.

Summary: This Review considers constraints in echo- and electro-locating animals such as weakly electric fish, bats and odontocetes, which are subject to signal interference and eavesdropping that compromise information transmission.

Summary: The amplitude of postural oscillation in elephants is comparable with that in dogs and other species, suggesting that some aspects of sensorimotor postural control do not scale with size.

Summary: Low temperature stress during pupal development has long-term effects on parental investment and offspring traits, including diapause incidence and viability.

Summary: A novel bouncy gait in sea stars is unlike any known terrestrial gait: it has a Froude number 1000 times lower than locomoting terrestrial vertebrates, but a kinetic and potential energy pattern similar to that seen in running.

Summary: Gill development occurs extremely rapidly in coral reef damselfishes. Early embryonic changes suggest that this initiates key ionoregulatory and respiratory functions in preparation for a fast pace of life.

Summary: In bullfrogs, feeding modulates corticosterone, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio and bacterial killing ability; fasting increases stomach melatonin. This indicates hypothalamic–pituitary–interrenal axis activation in the postprandial period and a possible protective function of melatonin during fasting.

Summary: Intramuscular elastic elements and tensional stress allow for the differential use of arm muscle passive forces during motion in Octopus vulgaris.

Summary: Freeze avoidance is adversely affected by warming in diapausing Pieris rapae butterflies. Metabolomics suggests that this is driven by shifts in the abundance of hundreds of metabolites.

Editor's choice: New data on subterranean rodents elucidate the evolution of poor hearing in mammals living underground.

Summary: Orientation tests in a small migratory songbird provide clear evidence for the efficacy of the magnet approach for temporarily disrupting magnetic compass orientation, but also reveal its limitations in experiments under free-flight conditions.

Summary: Expression and behavioral analyses reveal that overexpression of neuroligin 1 in the antennal lobes is paralleled with age- and odor experience-related increase in sex pheromone responsiveness of male moths.

Highlighted Article: Examination of the effects of long-term dietary β-carotene supplementation and ontogenetic colour change in an aposematic frog found evidence for consistent ontogenetic colour change, but no effect of dietary β-carotene.

Summary: The physiological impacts of climate change on thermally susceptible marine sponges can be elucidated through proteome dynamics.

Highlighted Article: Differences in the mechanics and energetics of walking suggest that children cannot be simply modeled as scaled-down versions of adults.

Summary: Corticosterone affects prenatal development and oxidative status in yellow-legged gull embryos.