Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
gibbonNetR: an R Package for the Use of Convolutional Neural Networks and Transfer Learning on Acoustic Data
Published: 2024-07-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Automated detection of acoustic signals is crucial for effective monitoring of vocal animals and their habitats across large spatial and temporal scales. Recent advances in deep learning have made high performance automated detection approaches more accessible to more practitioners. However, there are few deep learning approaches that can be implemented natively in R. The 'torch for R' ecosystem [...]
Competition for pollen deposition space on pollinators generates last-male advantage
Published: 2024-07-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Many plants have precise pollen placement strategies so that large amounts of pollen can be found over very small and discrete areas located on pollinators. This may lead to male-male competition if pre-existing pollen (1) is smothered or displaced by pollen from subsequent male flowers or (2) prevents subsequent pollen from attaching to pollinators. We investigated these alternative hypotheses [...]
Marine resources alter tundra food web dynamics by subsidizing a terrestrial predator on the sea ice
Published: 2024-07-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Predator use of resource subsidies can strengthen top-down effects on prey when predators respond numerically to subsidies. Although allochthonous subsidies are generally transported along natural gradients, consumers can cross ecosystem boundaries to acquire subsidies, thereby linking disparate ecosystems. In coastal Arctic ecosystems, terrestrial predators can easily cross into the marine [...]
Blindingly Transparent – Anonymity in an Era of Openness: A Reply to Cardini
Published: 2024-07-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
We welcome and appreciate the comment from Cardini [1] on our “ABC of academic writing” [2]. Cardini rightly points out that some of our advice could lead to revealing one’s identity inadvertently, jeopardising the double-blind peer review process. Importantly, there is a wealth of evidence that the effectiveness of double-blind review can prevent biases resulting from traditional single-blind [...]
Detection of energetic equivalence depends on food web architecture and estimators of energy use
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecologists have long debated the universality of the energetic equivalence rule (EER), which posits that population energy use should be invariant with average body size due to negative size–density scaling. We explored size–density and size–energy use scaling across 183 geographically–distributed soil invertebrate food webs to investigate the universality of these fundamental EER assumptions. [...]
Physical Trait Variation in Hass Avocados Across Different Fruit Sizes
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Life Sciences
Hass avocados are globally consumed, nutrient-rich fruits. While current analyses mainly benefit the industry, there is a need for research focused on consumer advantages. Understanding the statistical relationships between the physical characteristics of avocados, particularly pulp content, can help consumers make better purchasing decisions. This study examines the physical attributes of Hass [...]
Strong small-scale differentiation but no cryptic species within the two isopod species Asellus aquaticus and Proasellus coxalis in a restored urban river system (Emscher, Germany)
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Zoology
Worldwide, humans have strongly altered river networks. Key changes resulted in modified hydromorphology, poor habitat quality and availability, migration barriers, and pollution. Restoration measures aim at mitigating anthropogenic stressors and to restore connectivity, but the biological success of the measures is not guaranteed. Analyzing genetic diversity and population structure of target [...]
Topoclimate buffers floristic diversity from macroclimate in temperate mountain forests.
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Microclimates strongly influence the composition and diversity of forest plant communities. Recent studies have highlighted the role of tree canopies in shaping understory thermal conditions at small spatial scales, especially in lowland forests. In mountain forests, however, the influence of topography in environmental conditions (e.g. topoclimate) is ought to also influence plants’ perceived [...]
From eggs to adulthood: sustained effects of early developmental temperature and corticosterone exposure on physiology and body size in an Australian lizard
Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
As global temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, developing animals may be increasingly exposed to elevated temperatures. Developing vertebrates can be affected by elevated temperatures directly, and indirectly through maternal effects such as increased exposure to prenatal glucocorticoid hormones. Although many studies have examined how elevated temperatures and glucocorticoid [...]
Phenological Patterns of Woody Plant Species in a Tropical Dry Forest, Bannerghatta National Park, Bengaluru
Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring natural stages in the life cycle of an organism. These natural stages, such as the plant's reproductive cycles, are being affected by the changing climate. The current study aims to understand the effect of weather parameters on the phenology of dry forests in Bannerghatta National Park. Two transects with 504 reproductively mature individuals [...]
Spatial bias in dietary studies can limit our understanding of the feeding ecology of large carnivores
Published: 2024-06-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Many large carnivores have broad geographical ranges, encompassing ecosystems with a different prey base. Our understanding of their diet could therefore be biased by the spatial concentration of dietary studies into few areas. We propose a protocol to divide the geographical range of large carnivores, into areas that are homogeneous with respect to available food sources, by using the grey wolf [...]
ExActR: A Shiny app for creating ecosystem extent accounts
Published: 2024-06-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Ecosystem accounting is a structured way to integrate nature into sustainable decision-making. The System of Environmental Economic Accounting-Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA) was adopted by the United Nations as a set of international standards for the collection of habitat data and compiling ecosystem accounts. The ecosystem extent account is one of the four pillars of the SEEA-EA framework, [...]
Range size variably predicts genetic diversity in Gehyra geckos
Published: 2024-06-25
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
Genetic diversity is a fundamental population genetic parameter, and predicts adaptive capacity. Neutral theory predicts a positive correlation between population (or range) size and genetic diversity, but this can be confounded by other demographic processes. To investigate the role of range size, population fluctuation and introgression in determining genetic diversity, we generate and analyse [...]
Taxonomic imbalances in animal sleep studies
Published: 2024-06-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
Although sleep is essential for the survival of all animals, this behaviour is far from being studied in all species, especially in invertebrates. In this dissertation, we attempted to bring together current knowledge about sleep with a focus on arthropods, which have been much less studied in this regard than vertebrates. While some species appear to exhibit rest periods that combine all the [...]
Tundra vegetation community, not microclimate, controls asynchrony of above and belowground phenology
Published: 2024-06-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The below-ground growing season often extends beyond the above-ground growing season in tundra ecosystems. However, we do not yet know where and when this occurs and whether these phenological asynchronies are driven by variation in local vegetation communities or by spatial variation in microclimate. Here, we combined above- and below-ground plant phenology metrics to compare the relative [...]