Zoology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animals tracking objects can adapt their movements to optimise sensory coding. Using fish that sense objects as perturbations to an electric field, Clarke et al. reveal that the optimal object distance maintained by the fish is encoded within the firing properties of electrosensory neurons.

    • Stephen E. Clarke
    • , André Longtin
    •  & Leonard Maler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Swimming animals are generally assumed to generate forward thrust by pushing surrounding water rearwards. Here, Gemmell et al.show that efficient swimming in lampreys and jellyfish is achieved primarily through suction, as vortex-associated low pressure regions are synchronized by undulations of the body.

    • Brad J. Gemmell
    • , Sean P. Colin
    •  & John O. Dabiri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Social-network dynamics can influence biological processes such as information flow, but are difficult to measure in the wild. Here, St Clair et al.track networks of New Caledonian crows to show how the potential for information flow can be influenced by changes in resource distribution.

    • James J. H. St Clair
    • , Zackory T. Burns
    •  & Christian Rutz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Migration of adult American eels from the coast to their spawning area in the Sargasso Sea have previously only been inferred from larval distributions. Here, Béguer-Pon et al. track adult eels from the continental shelf into the open ocean, with one individual migrating to the northern limit of the spawning site.

    • Mélanie Béguer-Pon
    • , Martin Castonguay
    •  & Julian J. Dodson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Weakly electric fish species use low-voltage to sense their surroundings, whereas a few strongly electric species use high-voltage as a weapon. Here the author shows that electric eels cross this boundary, using high-voltage simultaneously as a stunning weapon and as an electrical radar system to track fast-moving prey.

    • Kenneth C. Catania

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The burying beetle shows flexible parenting behaviour. Here, the authors show that offspring fare equally well regardless of the sex or number of parents present and find similar gene expression profiles in uniparental and biparental females and in uniparental males, which suggests no specialization in parenting.

    • Darren J. Parker
    • , Christopher B. Cunningham
    •  & Allen J. Moore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Insects include most living species, yet the causes of this remarkable diversity remain unclear. Here, the authors show a positive relationship between herbivory and diversification among insect orders, which suggests that herbivory helps explain insect diversity.

    • John J. Wiens
    • , Richard T. Lapoint
    •  & Noah K. Whiteman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The presence of a pulmonary system in fossil coelacanths has only recently been identified, with little known about homologues in living species. Here, Cupello et al. confirm the presence of a lung in the extant species Latimeria chalumnaeand report its growth during different stages of development.

    • Camila Cupello
    • , Paulo M. Brito
    •  & Gaël Clément

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In species in which females mate with multiple partners, sexual selection acts on male traits involved in mating and fertilization. Here, the authors show that selection acting before and after mating explains a significant component of variance in male reproductive fitness in a livebearing fish.

    • Alessandro Devigili
    • , Jonathan P. Evans
    •  & Andrea Pilastro

  • Article |

    Intraspecific variation is known to cascade evolutionary change down through food webs, although bottom-up changes are less well described. Here, Brodersenet al. show that life history change in a prey fish species, mediated through anthropogenic activity, can promote phenotypic diversification of its top predator.

    • Jakob Brodersen
    • , Jennifer G. Howeth
    •  & David M. Post

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multilevel societies are comprised of hierarchically nested levels of social organization, but how they arise is not well understood. Here Cantor et al. find that the emergence of sperm whale clans is more likely to be driven by cultural transmission of acoustic repertoires than via stochastic processes.

    • Maurício Cantor
    • , Lauren G. Shoemaker
    •  & Hal Whitehead

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Corollary discharges inform the central nervous system about impending motor activity. Here, Chagnaud et al. show that, in Xenopustadpoles, shared efferent neural pathways to the inner ear and lateral line adjust the sensitivity of sensory afferents during locomotor activity.

    • Boris P. Chagnaud
    • , Roberto Banchi
    •  & Hans Straka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Physonect siphonophores are highly mobile jellyfish with complex colonial organization. Here, Costelloet al. show that division of labour among developmental stages controls the direction and propulsion of the colony, with older individuals providing thrust and younger individuals providing torque.

    • John H. Costello
    • , Sean P. Colin
    •  & Kelly R. Sutherland

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the mechanism underlying the evolution of ecologically relevant traits is challenging. Here the authors show that changes in the Hox protein Ultrabithorax and its target genegiltcontribute to the evolution of long-mid-legs in water striders, a critical trait to escape predators.

    • David Armisén
    • , Peter Nagui Refki
    •  & Abderrahman Khila

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about how detritivorous invertebrates cope with high levels of defensive plant polyphenols. Here, Liebekeet al. identify a new class of surface-active metabolites in earthworms exposed to high-polyphenol diets, and show that they play a protective role against precipitation of proteins.

    • Manuel Liebeke
    • , Nicole Strittmatter
    •  & Jacob G. Bundy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Group conformity is crucial for collective behaviours, but may decrease overall responsiveness to external cues. Here the authors show that load-carrying ant groups function at a transition between ballistic and random motions, where the influence of informed individuals is maximized.

    • Aviram Gelblum
    • , Itai Pinkoviezky
    •  & Ofer Feinerman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reductions in winter duration under climate change may have negative consequences for ectotherms adapted to seasonal temperature regimes. Here Farmeret al. show how short winters have, in part, caused failed lake fishery recruitment by altering spawning phenology and lowering the quality of eggs and larvae.

    • Troy M. Farmer
    • , Elizabeth A. Marschall
    •  & Stuart A. Ludsin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coffee berry borer, the main insect pest of coffee, feeds and lives on the caffeine-rich beans despite caffeine’s toxic effects. Here Ceja-Navarro et al. show that certain microbes, including Pseudomonasspecies, mediate caffeine detoxification in the insect’s gut.

    • Javier A. Ceja-Navarro
    • , Fernando E. Vega
    •  & Eoin L. Brodie

  • Article |

    How animals distinguish family members from unrelated conspecifics is not fully understood. Here Levréro et al.show that although the structure of mandrill vocalisations can be modulated by their social environment, it still contains information that may be used to recognise unfamiliar relatives.

    • F. Levréro
    • , G. Carrete-Vega
    •  & M.J.E. Charpentier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Defense against environmental threats is essential for survival, yet the neural circuits mediating innate defensive behaviours are not completely understood. Here the authors demonstrate that descending projections from the auditory cortex to the midbrain mediate innate, sound-evoked flight behaviour.

    • Xiaorui R. Xiong
    • , Feixue Liang
    •  & Li I. Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the olfactory system, odourants typically evoke spiking responses in neurons that are both spatially and temporally structured. Here, the authors demonstrate that odour identity is encoded purely by the combinations of neurons activated and is insensitive to changes in temporal structure.

    • Debajit Saha
    • , Chao Li
    •  & Baranidharan Raman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolution of neuropeptide signalling in insects is poorly understood. Here the authors map renal tissue architecture in the major insect Orders, and show that while the ancient neuropeptide families are involved in signalling in nearly all species, there is functional variation in the cell types that mediate the signal.

    • Kenneth A. Halberg
    • , Selim Terhzaz
    •  & Julian A. T. Dow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Claspers are copulatory organs found in male cartilaginous fishes. Here, the authors show that androgen receptor signalling maintains the Shh pathway to promote clasper development in male skates and suggest the importance of hormonal regulation in the evolution of male copulatory organs.

    • Katherine L. O’Shaughnessy
    • , Randall D. Dahn
    •  & Martin J. Cohn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The velvet worm emits a rapidly oscillating jet of proteinaceous slime to capture prey. Here, Concha et al. combine high-speed videography and a physical simulacrum to establish that this passive mechanism is the result of elastohydrodynamic instability during high-speed flow through the oral papillae.

    • Andrés Concha
    • , Paula Mellado
    •  & Julián Monge-Nájera

  • Article |

    Deep-sea diving mammals routinely undergo extreme physiological challenges not experienced by their terrestrial counterparts. Using high-resolution electrocardiographic recorders fitted to seals and dolphins, Williams et al. report an increased frequency of cardiac arrhythmias at greater exercise intensity and dive depth.

    • Terrie M. Williams
    • , Lee A. Fuiman
    •  & Randall W. Davis

  • Article |

    Understanding how corals may react to ocean acidification is hampered due to a lack of insight into how corals source the inorganic carbon required to build their skeletons. Here, the authors show that corals are able to concentrate dissolved carbon and that bicarbonate contributes to the carbon pool used to build their skeletons.

    • Nicola Allison
    • , Itay Cohen
    •  & Alexander W. Tudhope

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The hormone prolactin is a known modulator of mammalian lactation and hair growth. Here, the authors describe two dominant mutations in bovine prolactin and its receptor, demonstrating antagonistic effects on these traits and highlighting a role for this pathway in sweat gland function and thermoregulation.

    • Mathew D. Littlejohn
    • , Kristen M. Henty
    •  & Stephen R. Davis

  • Article |

    Vultures are scavengers with a high tolerance to bacterial toxins in decaying meat. Here, Roggenbuck et al.show that the vulture’s gut microbiome displays unique features and is dominated by Clostridia and Fusobacteria, two bacterial groups commonly associated with infectious disease in other animals.

    • Michael Roggenbuck
    • , Ida Bærholm Schnell
    •  & Lars H Hansen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms underlying the emergence of novel morphological traits are largely unknown. Here, the authors show that cis-regulatory changes controlling the expression of the fhl2bpigmentation gene are associated with the evolution of egg-spots colour markings in the male fins of a group of cichlids.

    • M. Emília Santos
    • , Ingo Braasch
    •  & Walter Salzburger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Post-translational mRNA editing has the potential to enhance the diversity of gene products and alter the functional properties of proteins. Here, Li et al. provide evidence that RNA editing is involved in generating caste-specific contrasting phenotypes in the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior.

    • Qiye Li
    • , Zongji Wang
    •  & Guojie Zhang

  • Article |

    Mechanical strain causes bone remodelling when it exceeds threshold levels of a proposed ‘lazy zone’, in which bone density is unresponsive to mechanical strain. Here the authors show that human bone remodeling is entirely load-driven, suggesting that no such ‘lazy’ state exists for human bones.

    • Patrik Christen
    • , Keita Ito
    •  & Bert van Rietbergen

  • Article |

    Echolocating bats possess an organized map of echo delay in the auditory cortex. Bartenstein et al. investigate the influence of echo-acoustic flow information on the organization of the cortical map, and find that dynamic adaptation of the map is dependent on situation-specific sensory input.

    • Sophia K. Bartenstein
    • , Nadine Gerstenberg
    •  & Uwe Firzlaff

  • Article |

    Certain bacterial metabolites can affect insect behaviour, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here, the authors show that 2-aminoacetophenone, produced by the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, attracts flies and facilitates microbial dissemination and colonization of the fly gut.

    • Stefania-Elisavet Kapsetaki
    • , Ilias Tzelepis
    •  & Yiorgos Apidianakis

  • Article |

    Determining how pesticides found in nectar and pollen impair pollinator behaviour in the field requires setting standards for measuring effects in free-ranging insects. Here, Henry et al.show that sublethal effects of a neonicotinoid pesticide in bees depends on the landscape and time of exposure.

    • Mickaël Henry
    • , Colette Bertrand
    •  & Axel Decourtye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many pelagic fishes and squids live at ocean depths below the euphotic zone but whether surface predators dive to these depths to feed on them is unclear. Here, the authors tag Chilean devil rays and demonstrate that they regularly make dives to at least 1,500 m, suggesting that the rays forage for food at these depths.

    • Simon R. Thorrold
    • , Pedro Afonso
    •  & Michael L. Berumen

  • Article |

    Visual signals that help individuals recognize their own species are predicted to be distinct from those of closely related sympatric species, but evidence for this pattern is scarce. Here, Allen et al.show guenon faces are distinctive, specifically from those of other guenon species they encounter.

    • William L. Allen
    • , Martin Stevens
    •  & James P. Higham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) migrate from North America to central Mexico during the fall. Here, Guerra et al. show that, in addition to a sun compass orientation, monarch butterflies use a magnetic compass to help direct their flight towards the equator.

    • Patrick A Guerra
    • , Robert J Gegear
    •  & Steven M Reppert

  • Article |

    The evolutionary origin of tumours remains largely unknown. Here, Domazet-Lošo et al. show evidence for naturally occurring tumours in the freshwater polyp, Hydra, and suggest that tumours have deep evolutionary roots.

    • Tomislav Domazet-Lošo
    • , Alexander Klimovich
    •  & Thomas C.G. Bosch

  • Article |

    Cardiac function can limit high-temperature tolerance in fish. Here, Antilla et al.show similar cardiac responses to warming for two wild Atlantic salmon populations with different environmental temperatures, which suggests that cardiac plasticity is independent of natural habitat.

    • Katja Anttila
    • , Christine S. Couturier
    •  & Anthony P. Farrell

  • Article |

    It is unclear how birds differentiate their own eggs from cuckoo’s eggs that parasitize their nests. Here, the authors develop a computer vision tool that simulates how brains process pattern information and show that cuckoos’ hosts have evolved unique egg patterns to distinguish their own eggs from a cuckoo’s.

    • Mary Caswell Stoddard
    • , Rebecca M. Kilner
    •  & Christopher Town

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Social intelligence requires the understanding of third-party relations, which is known to occur in humans and primates. Here, Massen et al.show that ravens respond differently to sound recordings of dominance interactions between other ravens, suggesting that ravens also understand third-party relations.

    • Jorg J. M. Massen
    • , Andrius Pašukonis
    •  & Thomas Bugnyar

  • Article |

    The function of zebra stripes remains unclear as none of the options have been validated ecologically. Here, the authors, matching striping patterns to environmental variables, test the main hypotheses against each other and find that biting fly avoidance best explains the presence of stripes in equids.

    • Tim Caro
    • , Amanda Izzo
    •  & Theodore Stankowich

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