Category Archives: Animal Behavior

Journal Club: Illuminating the neurons that help fruit fly larvae escape danger

Posted on September 5, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Disturb fruit fly larvae with sharp jabs or intense heat and they’ll respond the same way every time. “They always roll two or three times, and then stop rolling and land away from the noxious thing,” says neuroscientist Kazuo Emoto … Continue reading →

Journal Club: CRISPR elucidates genetic basis of social behavior in ants

Posted on August 10, 2017 by Viviane Callier

Drosophila has been a workhorse of genetics for roughly a century. But as a solitary insect, it hasn’t allowed researchers to investigate the genetic basis of complex social behavior in ants and bees. Now, a pair of studies published today in … Continue reading →

Journal Club: A physicist’s take on the age-old ecological puzzle of how species form communities

Posted on May 19, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Ecologists have long searched for the rules that govern how individual species join together to form a community. Whether forest or desert, the problem is complex. Myriad factors influence a community’s composition and stability —from how strongly species compete to … Continue reading →

Journal Club: In a first, deep sea robots get a close look at giant larvaceans, a key player in the biological carbon pump

Posted on May 3, 2017 by Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Closer inspection of the giant larvacean, seen here in an undersea video taken by a remotely operated vehicle, could reveal clues about how the deep sea sequesters carbon. Image Credit: © 2017 MBARI In the deeps off Monteray Bay, Calif., … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Tracking memories in fruit fly brains

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Memories help animals make predictions. A honeybee may remember that the smell of orange blossoms means nectar is nearby. But sometimes memories require updating. “If you know that your fridge is a good source of food, and you go to … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Antibiotics alter the honeybee microbiome and increase bee death

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Carolyn Beans

Antibiotics could potentially disrupt the health-promoting microbes that make up the microbiomes in humans and other animals. But pinning down exactly how microbiomes and antibiotics affect human health is complicated by the sheer number of microbes involved. Evolutionary biologist Nancy … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Phosphorylation has surprisingly big role in control of circadian clocks

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Jessica P. Johnson

The network of molecules that makes up the circadian clock, which governs the timing of cellular processes in most living things, has been well studied. But thus far, technological limitations have prevented researchers from elucidating exactly how the clocks orchestrate … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Neural circuits and social status spur zebrafish to swim or flee

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Helen Shen

Should I stay or should I go? In the zebrafish (Danio rerio), two competing neural circuits determine whether an animal swims or turns tail and escapes. Social status can tip the balance between these circuits, leading dominant and subordinate animals … Continue reading →