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
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
