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Stem cells are undifferentiated cells with a potential for self-renewal, which are essential to support normal development and homeostasis. To gain insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying adult stem c...
The understanding of concerted movements and its underlying biomechanics is often complex and elusive. Functional principles and hypothetical functions of these complex movements can provide a solid basis for ...
Reproductive division of labor is one of the key features of social insects. Queens are adapted for reproduction while workers are adapted for foraging and colony maintenance. In many species, however, workers...
Numerous species, especially among rodents, are strongly affected by the availability of pulsed resources. The intermittent production of large seed crops in northern hemisphere tree species (e.g., beech Fagus sp...
The hypopharyngeal gland of worker bees contributes to the production of the royal jelly fed to queens and larvae. The gland consists of thousands of two-cell units that are composed of a secretory cell and a ...
Ocean acidification and warming are happening fast in the Arctic but little is known about the effects of ocean acidification and warming on the physiological performance and survival of Arctic fish.
The Asian house rat (Rattus tanezumi) and the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) are closely related species and are partially sympatric in southern China. Over the past 20 years, R. tanezumi has significantly expande...
Animals show consistent individual behavioural differences in many species. Further, behavioural traits (personality traits) form behavioural syndromes, characterised by correlations between different behaviou...
Glass sponges (Class Hexactinellida) are important components of deep-sea ecosystems and are of interest from geological and materials science perspectives. The reconstruction of their phylogeny with molecular...
Predicting the consequences of continuing anthropogenic changes in the environment for migratory behaviours such as phenology remains a major challenge. Predictions remain particularly difficult, because our k...
In highly structured societies, individuals behave flexibly and cooperatively in order to achieve a particular group-level outcome. However, even in social species, environmental inputs can have long lasting e...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Correction to this article has been published in Frontiers in Zoology 2018 15:2
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 ...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Frontiers in Zoology