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Cover image
Cover Image
Cover: A brown-throated three-toed sloth moving below-branch by suspensory walking. McKamy et al. (jeb245622 ) discovered that their long, modified forelimbs are used for propulsion, whereas their shorter, stronger hindlimbs apply large braking forces and provide greater body weight support when horizontally traversing branches. Tree sloths are one of only a few mammalian taxa that have obligate suspensory habits, and although occupation of this unusual arboreal niche is convergent with several species of primates and their two-toed cousins, all of these animals demonstrate variable locomotor kinetics when performing inverted quadrupedalism. Photo credit: Ignacio Moya, The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica.
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INSIDE JEB
COMMENTARY
The control of breathing in fishes – historical perspectives and the path ahead
Summary: Here, we link the pivotal discoveries in respiratory control in fishes to the development of innovative methods and posit that the adoption of gene-based technologies will be instrumental in advancing the field.
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Azimuthal invariance to looming stimuli in the Drosophila giant fiber escape circuit
Drosophila descending neurons respond to visual looming information from the contralateral eye, even though their dendrites are ipsilateral, highlighting the importance of bilateral visual integration in generating location-invariant escape responses.
METHODS & TECHNIQUES
Reconstructing the pressure field around swimming fish using a physics-informed neural network
Summary: A machine learning-based method for reconstructing the pressure field around swimming fish can be used to study the role of pressure sensing in a fish’s response to external stimuli.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
To escape or to pursue: opposite decision making concerning a single moving object is influenced by starvation and sex
Summary: In the crab Neohelice granulata, compatible decisions between prey catching or predator escape responses are elicited by the same moving object. The behavioural choice depends on starvation level and sex.
How bumblebees coordinate path integration and body orientation at the start of their first learning flight
Summary: Bumblebees fixate the nest while viewing a preferred location in their visual surroundings. This conjunction is aided by a preceding translational scan.
Fipronil affects cockroach behavior and olfactory memory
Environmentally found sublethal doses of fipronil affect cockroach exploratory behavior and olfactory memory, similar to the effect on honey bees.
Elevated developmental temperatures impact the size and allometry of morphological traits of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris
Summary: Bumblebees show a reduction in body size and antenna length and a change in allometric scaling of the tongue with elevated developmental temperature, indicating a strong impact of temperature on morphological traits.
Pump the brakes! The hindlimbs of three-toed sloths decelerate and support suspensory locomotion
Vertical and mediolateral limb loading patterns suggest that there are multiple strategies of body weight support and locomotor stability across suspensory mammals.
Aversive memory conditioning induces fluoxetine-dependent anxiety-like states in the crab Neohelice granulata
Summary: Crab associative aversive conditioning leads to the formation of enduring emotional behavior, revealed through dark/light plus-maze evaluation, involving serotonin-dependent processes.
Balanced mitochondrial function at low temperature is linked to cold adaptation in Drosophila species
Summary: Mitochondrial oxygen consumption decreases at low temperature, particularly in cold-sensitive Drosophila species, which turn to oxidation of alternative substrates as complex I-supported respiration is impaired.
The roles of brain lipids and polar metabolites in the hypoxia tolerance of deep-diving pinnipeds
Summary: Efficient neurotransmission supported by increased sphingomyelin and reduced glutamate levels, as well as increased glycolytic capacity, may contribute to the hypoxia tolerance of the pinniped brain.
ECR SPOTLIGHT
New funding schemes for junior faculty staff
In celebration of our 100th anniversary, JEB has launched two new grants to support junior faculty staff working in animal comparative physiology and biomechanics who are within five years of setting up their first lab/research group. Check out our ECR Visiting Fellowships and Research Partnership Kickstart Travel Grants.
JEB@100: an interview with Monitoring Editor Stuart Egginton
Stuart Egginton reveals how he overcame the challenges of being a comparative physiologist in a medical school and how he would tell his younger self to trust his instincts when pursuing new ideas.
Mapping Neuromodulator expression in Octopus vulgaris – a Travelling Fellowship story
To develop her understanding of neural mapping, Federica Pizzulli, a PhD student from the Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms Department of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, used a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Experimental Biology to visit the Seuntjens lab at KU Leuven, Belgium – the first lab to adapt in-situ Hybridization Chain Reaction (HCR) to Octopus vulgaris. Read more about our Travelling Fellowships here.
Revealing the secrets of sleep
Research spanning 20 years has illuminated the universal nature of sleep across species, from mammals to cnidaria. Rhea Lakhiani and colleagues explore sleep phenomenology, physiology and function through the lens of comparative physiology.
Thirsty snakes want to keep cool
Even though cooling down to digest dinner is a risky strategy - it takes longer leaving reptiles vulnerable to attack - thirsty Children's pythons find a cooler spot and now Jill Azzolini & co have discovered that the parched reptiles choose to keep cool to conserve water.
