Journal of Experimental Biology - Latest Issue

• Economical load carrying in immature cockroaches

  ABSTRACT

  The energetic costs of carrying loads can significantly impact animal fitness but appear to vary dramatically among animals. For some, they equal the cost of carrying an equivalent amount of extra body mass, while others carry loads more economically. Locomotor systems can plastically respond to acute and chronic loading, but how such responses impact the energetics of locomotion is unclear. We asked how loading affects the energetics of an immature hemimetabolous insect, the cockroach Blaberus discoidalis, at rest and during locomotion at various speeds, and whether energetics change as animals adjust to chronic loading. Cockroaches carried loads economically as early as 2 h after load addition, with no change in energetic costs during a 10 day period. We discuss the implications of these findings and potential mechanisms underlying economical load carrying in arthropods.

• ECR Spotlight – Be Eldash

  ABSTRACT

  ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Be Eldash is an author on ‘ Economic load-carrying in immature cockroaches’, published in JEB. Be is a PhD student in the lab of Ruud Schilder at Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, USA, investigating how animal locomotor systems are affected by environmental conditions and biological characteristics, particularly body size, energetics and metabolism.