Cover article – A critical period of susceptibility to sound in the sensory cells of cephalopod hatchlings

Sounds produced by human activities are increasingly contributing to the general noise budget of the oceans, where they can cause physical, physiological and behavioural effects in marine fauna. Now, Michel André and colleagues reveal that cephalopods such as this Sepia officinalis hatchling display morphological and ultrastructural evidence of massive acoustic trauma after low-frequency sound exposure.

Featured article – Viability of dietary substitution of live microalgae with dry Ulva rigida in broodstock conditioning of the Pacific oyster

Domitília Matias and colleagues show how the use of an alternative diet with 25% microalgae replacement by dry macroalgae is beneficial during broodstock conditioning and allows the operation costs of bivalve hatcheries to be minimized.

Find out more about the story behind the study in an interview with first author Ana Rato.

First Person interviews

Have you seen our interviews with the early-career first authors of our papers? Recently, we caught up with first authors Timothy Jakobi, Alexander Knorr & Céline Gravot, Tomoko Matsuzaki, Lauren Nadler and Qiang Yang.

Why should you publish your next paper in BiO?

Biology Open has strong credentials and publishing with us is easy and fast. BiO aims to provide rapid publication for scientifically sound observations and valid conclusions in developmental, cell, experimental and translational biology. Submit your paper here; you’ll be in good company.

Recent cell science research highlights in BiO – The major contributor to ribosome heterogeneity is variation in rRNA modification by methylation and pseudouridylation. Michael Hebert and colleagues provide additional evidence for the regulation of snoRNP activity by regRNPs, which alters levels of methylation.

Transfer to Biology Open

If your submission to one of our other journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology or Disease Models & Mechanism, is unsuccessful, did you know you can transfer your paper and any reviews directly to Biology Open? The majority of papers transferred with reviews are accepted for publication. Find out how here.

preLights – Plot all your data with PlotsOfData

The scientific community are becoming increasingly aware of the need for better ways than bar charts to compile and plot their results. Following on from our previous preLight on raincloud plots, Guillaume Jacquemet outlines the plot creation tools currently available to researchers and highlights a recent preprint from Marten Postma and Joachim Goedhart describing a new web app for generating dot plots, box plots or violin plots.