Dark pigments provide animals with several adaptive benefits such as protection against ultraviolet (UV) radiation and mechanical abrasion, but may also impose several constraints like a high absorbance of sol...
Authors: Ismael Galván, Daniel Palacios and Juan José Negro
Most animal eyes feature an opaque pigmented eyecup to assure that light can enter from one direction only. We challenge this dogma by describing a previously unknown form of eyeshine resulting from light that...
Authors: Roland Fritsch, Jeremy F. P. Ullmann, Pierre-Paul Bitton, Shaun P. Collin and Nico K. Michiels
The Yangzhou goose is a long-day breeding bird that has been increasingly produced in China. Artificial lighting programs are used for controlling its reproductive activities. This study investigated the regul...
Authors: Huanxi Zhu, Zhe Chen, Xibin Shao, Jianning Yu, Chuankun Wei, Zichun Dai and Zhendan Shi
Pair compatibility affects the success of a pair; however, its causes and mechanisms are not fully understood. Vocal exchange may be very important for pair formation, coordinating pair activities, maintaining...
Authors: Pietro Bruno D’Amelio, Lisa Trost and Andries ter Maat
Regeneration of the damaged central nervous system is one of the most interesting post-embryonic developmental phenomena. Two distinct cellular events have been implicated in supplying regenerative neurogenesi...
Authors: Vladimir S. Mashanov, Olga R. Zueva and José E. García-Arrarás
Predation risk is a primary motivator for prey to congregate in larger groups. A large group can be beneficial to detect predators, share predation risk among individuals and cause confusion for an attacking p...
Authors: Johan Månsson, Marie-Caroline Prima, Kerry L. Nicholson, Camilla Wikenros and Håkan Sand
Sexual selection has been hypothesised as favouring mate choice resulting in production of viable offspring with genotypes providing high pathogen resistance. Specific pathogen recognition is mediated by genes...
Authors: Dana Rymešová, Tereza Králová, Marta Promerová, Josef Bryja, Oldřich Tomášek, Jana Svobodová, Petr Šmilauer, Miroslav Šálek and Tomáš Albrecht
Non-human animals often produce different types of vocalisations in negative and positive contexts (i.e. different valence), similar to humans, in which crying is associated with negative emotions and laughter...
Authors: Elodie F. Briefer, Roi Mandel, Anne-Laure Maigrot, Sabrina Briefer Freymond, Iris Bachmann and Edna Hillmann
The pilidium larva is an idiosyncrasy defining one clade of marine invertebrates, the Pilidiophora (Nemertea, Spiralia). Uniquely, in pilidial development, the juvenile worm forms from a series of isolated rud...
Arthropod diversity is unparalleled in the animal kingdom. The study of ontogeny is pivotal to understand which developmental processes underlie the incredible morphological disparity of arthropods and thus to...
Authors: Georg Brenneis, Ekaterina V. Bogomolova, Claudia P. Arango and Franz Krapp
Individual differences in behaviour are widespread in the animal kingdom and often influenced by the size or composition of the social group during early development. In many vertebrates the effects of social ...
Authors: Stefanie Bölting and Nikolaus von Engelhardt
Solar-powered sea slugs are famed for their ability to survive starvation due to incorporated algal chloroplasts. It is well established that algal-derived carbon can be traced in numerous slug-derived compoun...
Authors: Elise M. J. Laetz, Victoria C. Moris, Leif Moritz, André N. Haubrich and Heike Wägele
Various types of long-term stable relationships that individuals uphold, including cooperation and competition between group members, define social complexity in vertebrates. Numerous life history, physiologic...
Authors: Isabella B. R. Scheiber, Brigitte M. Weiß, Sjouke A. Kingma and Jan Komdeur
The social environment the mother experiences during pregnancy and lactation can powerfully influence the offspring’s behavioural profile. Our previous studies in wild cavies show that two different social env...
Authors: Katja Siegeler, Lars Lewejohann, Klaus Failing, Norbert Sachser and Sylvia Kaiser
Snakes are considered to be vomerolfaction specialists. They are members of one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, Squamata. The vomeronasal organ and the associated structures (such as the lacrimal du...
Authors: Paweł Kaczmarek, Mateusz Hermyt and Weronika Rupik
Hybrid zones are regions where individuals of two species meet and produce hybrid progeny, and are often regarded as natural laboratories to understand the process of species formation. Two microevolutionary p...
Authors: Jan W. Arntzen, Tania Trujillo, Roland Butôt, Klaas Vrieling, Onno Schaap, Jorge Gutiérrez-Rodríguez and Iñigo Martínez-Solano
To better understand how different ambient temperatures during lactation affect survival of young, we studied patterns of losses of pups in golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) at different ambient temperatures...
Authors: Sarah A. Ohrnberger, Raquel Monclús, Heiko G. Rödel and Teresa G. Valencak
The visual systems in chelicerates are poorly understood, even though they show strong variation in eye and visual neuropil architecture, thus may provide valuable insights for the understanding of chelicerate...
Authors: Tobias Lehmann, Eva Lodde-Bensch, Roland R. Melzer and Martina Metz
Several independent meiofaunal lineages are suggested to have originated through progenesis, however, morphological support for this heterochronous process is still lacking. Progenesis is defined as an arrest ...
Authors: Alexandra Kerbl, Elizaveta G. Fofanova, Tatiana D. Mayorova, Elena E. Voronezhskaya and Katrine Worsaae
When facing a novel situation, animals can retreat or leave to avoid risks, but will miss potential resources and opportunities. Alternatively they may reduce environmental uncertainty by exploration, while ri...
Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) present an unparalleled insect model to integrate evolutionary genomics with ecology for the study of insect evolution. Key features of Odonata include their ancient phylo...
Authors: Seth Bybee, Alex Córdoba-Aguilar, M. Catherine Duryea, Ryo Futahashi, Bengt Hansson, M. Olalla Lorenzo-Carballa, Ruud Schilder, Robby Stoks, Anton Suvorov, Erik I. Svensson, Janne Swaegers, Yuma Takahashi, Phillip C. Watts and Maren Wellenreuther
Moult is one of the most costly activities in the annual cycle of birds and most avian species separate moult from other energy-demanding activities, such as migration. To this end, young birds tend to undergo...
Authors: Patrycja Podlaszczuk, Maciej Kamiński, Radosław Włodarczyk, Krzysztof Kaczmarek, Tomasz Janiszewski and Piotr Minias
Thaliaceans is one of the understudied classes of the phylum Tunicata. In particular, their phylogenetic relationships remain an issue of debate. The overall pattern of serotonin (5-HT) distribution is an exce...
Authors: Alberto Valero-Gracia, Rita Marino, Fabio Crocetta, Valeria Nittoli, Stefano Tiozzo and Paolo Sordino
Orangutans have one of the slowest-paced life histories of all mammals. Whereas life-history theory suggests that the time to reach adulthood is constrained by the time needed to reach adult body size, the nee...
Authors: Caroline Schuppli, Sofia I. F. Forss, Ellen J. M. Meulman, Nicole Zweifel, Kevin C. Lee, Evasari Rukmana, Erin R. Vogel, Maria A. van Noordwijk and Carel P. van Schaik
Cephalopods are a highly derived class of molluscs that adapted their body plan to a more active and predatory lifestyle. One intriguing adaptation is the modification of the ventral foot to form a bilaterally...
Authors: Marie-Therese Nödl, Alexandra Kerbl, Manfred G. Walzl, Gerd B. Müller and Heinz Gert de Couet
Most biological functions are synchronized to the environmental light:dark cycle via a circadian timekeeping system. Bears exhibit shallow torpor combined with metabolic suppression during winter dormancy. We ...
Authors: Heiko T. Jansen, Tanya Leise, Gordon Stenhouse, Karine Pigeon, Wayne Kasworm, Justin Teisberg, Thomas Radandt, Robert Dallmann, Steven Brown and Charles T. Robbins
Photoreceptors have evolved numerous times giving organisms the ability to detect light and respond to specific visual stimuli. Studies into the visual abilities of the Asteroidea (Echinodermata) have recently...
Authors: Ronald Petie, Anders Garm and Michael R. Hall
Understanding the role of avian vocal communication in social organisation requires knowledge of the vocal repertoire used to convey information. Parrots use acoustic signals in a variety of social contexts, b...
Authors: Adolfo Christian Montes-Medina, Alejandro Salinas-Melgoza and Katherine Renton
The minute, finely-tuned ear ossicles of mammals arose through a spectacular evolutionary transformation from their origins as a load-bearing jaw joint. This involved detachment from the postdentary trough of ...
Authors: Héctor E. Ramírez-Chaves, Vera Weisbecker, Stephen Wroe and Matthew J. Phillips
The amount of resources provided by the mother before birth has important and long-lasting effects on offspring fitness. Despite this, there is a large amount of variation in maternal investment seen in natura...
Authors: Joel L. Pick, Pascale Hutter, Christina Ebneter, Ann-Kathrin Ziegler, Marta Giordano and Barbara Tschirren
Information on larval diet of many holometabolous insects remains incomplete. Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stable isotope analysis in adult wing tissue can provide an efficient tool to infer such trophic relati...
Authors: Marc-Oliver Adams, Carlo Lutz Seifert, Lisamarie Lehner, Christine Truxa, Wolfgang Wanek and Konrad Fiedler
Ultrastructures in butterfly wing scales can take many shapes, resulting in the often striking coloration of many butterflies due to interference of light. The plethora of coloration mechanisms is dazzling, bu...
Authors: Bodo D. Wilts, Marco A. Giraldo and Doekele G. Stavenga
Determination of the embryonic body axes is a crucial developmental process in all animals. The establishment of the embryonic axes of spiders has been best studied in the common-house-spider Parasteatoda tepidar...
Assessing the range and territories of wild mammals traditionally requires years of data collection and often involves directly following individuals or using tracking devices. Indirect and non-invasive method...
Authors: Ammie K. Kalan, Alex K. Piel, Roger Mundry, Roman M. Wittig, Christophe Boesch and Hjalmar S. Kühl
Dewlaps are iconic features of several ungulate species and, although a role in signalling has been postulated, their function remains largely unexplored. We recently failed to find any age-independent link be...
In most mammals, lactating mothers dramatically increase their food intake after parturition and reach a peak intake rate after a certain time while their offspring continue to grow. A common view, perpetuated...
Authors: Frédéric Douhard, Jean-François Lemaître, Wendy M. Rauw and Nicolas C. Friggens
As increasingly fragmented and isolated populations of threatened species become subjected to climate change, invasive species and other stressors, there is an urgent need to consider adaptive potential when m...
Authors: Andrew R. Weeks, Jakub Stoklosa and Ary A. Hoffmann
Bitter taste perception is essential for species with selective food intake, enabling them to avoid unpalatable or toxic items. Previous studies noted a marked variation in the number of TAS2R genes among various...
Authors: Zhijin Liu, Guangjian Liu, Frank Hailer, Pablo Orozco-terWengel, Xinxin Tan, Jundong Tian, Zhongze Yan, Baowei Zhang and Ming Li
The flight patterns of albatrosses and shearwaters have become a touchstone for much of Lévy flight research, spawning an extensive field of enquiry. There is now compelling evidence that the flight patterns o...
Authors: Andrew M. Reynolds, Vitor H. Paiva, Jacopo G. Cecere and Stefano Focardi
Morphological characters of birds reflect their adaptive evolution and ecological requirements and are also relevant to phylogenetic relationships within a group of related species. The tits (Paridae) are know...
Authors: Shimiao Shao, Qing Quan, Tianlong Cai, Gang Song, Yanhua Qu and Fumin Lei
The swimming activity of sea urchin larvae is dependent on the ciliary band (CB) on the larval surface and is regulated by several neurotransmitters, including serotonin (5HT), dopamine, and γ-aminobutyric aci...
Innovative new techniques that aid in the visualization of microscopic anatomical structures have improved our understanding of organismal biology significantly. It is often challenging to observe internal 3D ...
Authors: Yongying Ruan, Dan Dan, Mengna Zhang, Ming Bai, Ming Lei, Baoli Yao and Xingke Yang
Through the actions of one or more isoforms of the enzyme 5α-reductase in many male reproductive tissues, circulating testosterone (T) undergoes metabolic conversion into 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which bi...
Authors: Matthew J. Fuxjager, Eric R. Schuppe, John Hoang, Jennifer Chew, Mital Shah and Barney A. Schlinger
Species-specific strategies for financing the costs of reproduction are well understood, forming a continuum ranging from high to low reliance on stored nutrients. Animals relying mostly on stored reserves are...
Authors: Kim Jaatinen, Markus Öst and Keith A. Hobson
An external skeleton is an essential part of the body plan of many animals and is thought to be one of the key factors that enabled the great expansion in animal diversity and disparity during the Cambrian exp...
Authors: Kevin M. Kocot, Felipe Aguilera, Carmel McDougall, Daniel J. Jackson and Bernard M. Degnan
The expression of animal personality is indicated by patterns of consistency in individual behaviour. Often, the differences exhibited between individuals are consistent across situations. However, between som...
Authors: Kyriacos Kareklas, Gareth Arnott, Robert W. Elwood and Richard A. Holland
Male-male competition and female mating preference are major mechanisms of sexual selection, which influences individual fitness. How male-male competition affects female preference, however, remains poorly un...
Authors: Saori Yokoi, Satoshi Ansai, Masato Kinoshita, Kiyoshi Naruse, Yasuhiro Kamei, Larry J. Young, Teruhiro Okuyama and Hideaki Takeuchi
The high incidence of hybridization in waterfowl (ducks, geese and swans) makes this bird group an excellent study system to answer questions related to the evolution and maintenance of species boundaries. How...
Authors: Jente Ottenburghs, Pim van Hooft, Sipke E. van Wieren, Ronald C. Ydenberg and Herbert H. T. Prins
Glucocorticoids are adrenal steroid hormones essential to homeostatic maintenance. Their daily variation at low concentrations regulates physiology and behavior to sustain proper immunological and metabolic fu...
Authors: Philipp Schwabl, Elisa Bonaccorso and Wolfgang Goymann
Brittle stars regenerate their whole arms post-amputation. Amphiura filiformis can now be used for molecular characterization of arm regeneration due to the availability of transcriptomic data. Previous work show...
Authors: Anna Czarkwiani, Cinzia Ferrario, David Viktor Dylus, Michela Sugni and Paola Oliveri
