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It is widely assumed that variation in fitness components has a physiological basis that might underlie selection on trade-offs, but the mechanisms driving decreased survival and future fecundity remain elusiv...
The mechanism that determines the specific body size of an animal is a fundamental biological question that remains largely unanswered. This aspect is now beginning to be understood in insect models, particula...
A number of shelled and shell-less gastropods are known to use multiple defensive mechanisms, including internally generated or externally obtained biochemically active compounds and structures. Within Nudiple...
Species delineation is particularly challenging in taxa with substantial intra-specific variation. In systematic studies of fishes, meristics and linear measurements that describe shape are often used to delin...
For brown bears (Ursus arctos), hibernation is a critical part of the annual life cycle because energy savings during hibernation can be crucial for overwintering, and females give birth to cubs at that time. For...
Birds, across their annual cycle, progress through sequences of life-history stages such as reproduction and molt. The mechanisms that control annual avian itineraries involve endocrine responses triggered by ...
The facial musculature is a remarkable anatomical complex involved in vital activities of fishes, such as food capture and gill ventilation. The evolution of the facial muscles is largely unknown in most major...
Density estimation is a key issue in wildlife management but is particularly challenging and labour-intensive for elusive species. Recently developed approaches based on remotely collected data and capture-rec...
Interspecies variation in avian egg shape and size is understandable in terms of adaptation, allometry and phylogeny. Within-species variation in egg properties influences offspring fitness and can be explaine...
As a small artiodactyl, the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus L.) is characterized by biological plasticity and great adaptability demonstrated by their survival under a wide variety of environmental conditions. In o...
A median, segmented, annelid nerve cord has repeatedly been compared to the arthropod and vertebrate nerve cords and became the most used textbook representation of the annelid nervous system. Recent phylogeno...
Throughout life, physiological homeostasis is challenged and the capacity to cope with such challenges declines with increasing age. In many species, sex differences exist in life expectancy. Sex-specific diff...
Immature stages of many animals can forage and feed on their own, whereas others depend on their parents’ assistance to obtain or process food. But how does such dependency evolve, and which offspring and pare...
Noise pollution is one of the leading environmental health risks for humans, linked to a myriad of stress-related health problems. Yet little is known about the long-term effects of noise on the health and fit...
Tree frogs have the remarkable ability to attach to smooth, rough, dry, and wet surfaces using their versatile toe pads. Tree frog attachment involves the secretion of mucus into the pad-substrate gap, requiri...
Macroinvertebrates such as non-biting midges (Chironomidae: Diptera) are important components of freshwater ecosystems. However, they are often neglected in biodiversity and conservation research because inver...
While thousands of ant species are arboreal, very few are able to chew and tunnel through living wood. Ants of the genus Melissotarsus (subfamily Myrmicinae) inhabit tunnel systems excavated under the bark of liv...
The neuromuscular junction is the chemical synapse where motor neurons communicate with skeletal muscle fibers. Whereas vertebrates and many invertebrates use acetylcholine as transmitter at the neuromuscular ...
The life history stages of brachyuran crustaceans include pelagic larvae of the Zoea type which grow by a series of moults from one instar to the next. Zoeae actively feed and possess a wide range of organ sys...
Enteropneusts are benthic marine invertebrates that belong to the deuterostome phylum Hemichordata. The two main clades of enteropneusts are defined by differences in early life history strategies. In the Spen...
Prenatal antibody transfer is an immune-mediated maternal effect by which females can shape postnatal offspring resistance to pathogens and parasites. Maternal antibodies passed on to offspring provide primary...
Myoanatomical studies of adult bryozoans employing fluorescent staining and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) have been chiefly conducted on freshwater bryozoans. The diversity of muscular systems in t...
Whether the great morphological disparity of domesticated forms is the result of uniformly higher evolutionary rates compared to the wild populations is debated. We provide new data on changes of skull dimensi...
Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC) have been documented to play crucial roles as species- and sex-specific cues in the chemical communication systems of a wide variety of insects. However, whether they are sufficien...
Rhinorhipidae Lawrence, 1988 is an enigmatic beetle family represented by a single species, Rhinorhipus tamborinensis Lawrence, 1988, from Australia, with poorly established affinities near the superfamily Elater...
The European spurge hawkmoth, Hyles euphorbiae (Lepidoptera, Sphingidae), has been intensively studied as a model organism for insect chemical ecology, cold hardiness and evolution of species delineation. To unde...
We summarise our work on male mating behaviour in the tropical butterfly Bicyclus anynana, responding to the commentary provided by Nieberding and Holveck. We acknowledge that our laboratory studies are not free ...
The original article was published in Frontiers in Zoology 2018 15:18
Over the last years, several studies suggested that male courtship activity is more important than female preference for male secondary sexual traits in determining male mating success in the butterfly Bicyclu...
The Commentary to this article has been published in Frontiers in Zoology 2018 15:19
Despite widespread interest in solar-powered sea slugs (Sacoglossa: Gastropoda), relatively little is know about how they actually perform functional kleptoplasty. Sister-taxa Elysia timida and E. cornigera provi...
Exploratory behaviour is one of the best-investigated behavioural traits. However, little is known about how differences in familiarity, i.e. in the knowledge and previous experience with a companion can influ...
The MHC class I and II loci mediate the adaptive immune response and belong to the most polymorphic loci in vertebrate genomes. In fact, the number of different alleles in a given species is often so large tha...
In horses, the morphological changes induced by the process of domestication are reportedly less pronounced than in other species, such as dogs or pigs – although the horses’ disparity has rarely been empirica...
The social environment that mothers experience during pregnancy and lactation has a strong effect on the developing offspring. Whether offspring can be adaptively shaped to match an environment that is similar...
Upon publication of this article [1] it was noticed errors were introduced during the production process which resulted in the omission of decimal points from Tables 2 and 3. In addition Table 1 incorrectly us...
The original article was published in Frontiers in Zoology 2017 14:42
The grey wolf (Canis lupus) is naturally recolonizing its former habitats in Europe where it was extirpated during the previous two centuries. The management of this protected species is often controversial and i...
Bivalves comprise a large, highly diverse taxon of invertebrate species. Developmental studies of neurogenesis among species of Bivalvia are limited. Due to a lack of neurogenesis information, it is difficult ...
Foraging strategies of seabird species often vary considerably between and within individuals. This variability is influenced by a multitude of factors including age, sex, stage of annual life cycle, reproduct...
Host-symbiont interactions are embedded in ecological communities and range from unspecific to highly specific relationships. Army ants and their arthropod guests represent a fascinating example of species-ric...
Sea spiders (Pycnogonida) are a widespread and phylogenetically important group of marine arthropods. However, their biology remains understudied, and detailed information about their feeding ecology is diffic...
Acoustic parameters of animal signals have been shown to correlate with various phenotypic characteristics of the sender. These acoustic characteristics can be learned and categorized and thus are a basis for ...
In rats, urine-borne male pheromones comprise organic volatile compounds and major urinary proteins (MUPs). A number of volatile pheromones have been reported, but no MUP pheromones have been identified in rat...
Communal nursing in house mice is an example of cooperation where females pool litters in the same nest and indiscriminately nurse own and other offspring despite potential exploitation. The direct fitness ben...
Unfortunately, upon publication of this article [1] it was noticed there was an error within the Discussion section. During proofing a request to edit the following paragraph was missed:
The original article was published in Frontiers in Zoology 2017 14:29
Upon publication of this article it [1] was noticed the figure placement was incorrect and figure citations were also numbered incorrectly.
The original article was published in Frontiers in Zoology 2016 13:43
Brittle stars (Ophiuroidea, Echinodermata) have been increasingly used in studies of animal behavior, locomotion, regeneration, physiology, and bioluminescence. The success of these studies directly depends on...
The need for the adaptation of species of annelids as “Evo-Devo” model organisms of the superphylum Lophotrochozoa to refine the understanding of the phylogenetic relationships between bilaterian organisms, ha...
Scavenger guilds are composed of a variety of species, co-existing in the same habitat and sharing the same niche in the food web. Niche partitioning among them can manifest in different feeding strategies, e....
Beak morphology exhibits considerable adaptive plasticity in birds, which results in highly varied or specialized forms in response to variations in ecology and life history. As the only parid species endemic ...
Acoustic properties of vocalizations can vary with the internal state of the caller, and may serve as reliable indicators for a caller’s emotional state, for example to prevent conflicts. Thus, individuals may...
Social learning allows animals to eavesdrop on ecologically relevant knowledge of competitors in their environment. This is especially important when selecting a habitat if individuals have relatively little p...
Frontiers in Zoology