ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from selection papers published in Journal Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity researchers (ECRs) working experimental biology during our centenary year, but also huge variety animals physiological systems that are essential for ‘comparative’ approach. Chloe Fouilloux an author on ‘ Visual environment ...

The Biodiversity Laboratories at Saint Joseph's University house more than 100 exotic and endangered animal species-including insects, fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Research in the laboratories is devoted, primarily, to understanding the genetic and ecological bases of animal behavior. In addition, a common theme of the work is the development of techniques for the successful care of exotic a...

Lauren O'Connell is a Bauer Fellow at Harvard University, USA, where she studies genetic and environmental contributions to behaviour and physiology in poison frogs. She received her Bachelor's degree in Biology from Cornell University, USA, before moving to the University of Texas at Austin, USA, for her PhD in the laboratory of Hans Hofmann, which she completed in 2011. O'Connell received a L...

In 1983, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) piloted a project to collect epidemiological data on poison exposures reported to poison centers nationwide.’ Sixteen participating poison centers reported 25 1,012 human poison exposures during that year. Forty-seven centers participated in the National Data Collection System in 1984, reporting 730,224 human poison exposures.2...

Poison information centers provide telephone advice on the treatment of poisonings to the lay public and medical professionals. In general, the services of a poison center are provided freely to the caller. However, poison center services are labor intensive and expensive since most poison centers utilize medical professionals to provide service and are available for consultation 24 hours/day. ...

Whether hybridization can be a mechanism that drives phenotypic diversity is a widely debated topic in evolutionary biology. In poison frogs (Dendrobatidae), assortative mating has been invoked to explain how new color morphs persist despite the expected homogenizing effects of natural selection. Here, we tested the complementary hypothesis that new morphs arise through hybridization between di...

Toxic weaponry in the form of venom and poison has evolved in most groups of animals, including all four major lineages of tetrapods. Moreover, the evolution of such traits has been linked to several key aspects of the biology of toxic animals including life-history and diversification. Despite this, attempts to investigate the macroevolutionary patterns underlying such weaponry are lacking. In...