Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
New insights to be gained from a Virtual Ecosystem
Published: 2024-06-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
The myriad interactions among individual plants, animals, microbes and their abiotic environment generate emergent phenomena that will determine the future of life on Earth. Here, we argue that holistic ecosystem models – incorporating key biological domains and feedbacks between biotic and abiotic processes – capable of predicting emergent phenomena are required if we are to understand the [...]
Microbial growth in soil
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
The growth rate of a microorganism is a simple yet profound way to quantify its impact on the world. Microbial fitness in the environment depends on the ability to reproduce quickly when conditions are favorable and adopt a survival physiology when conditions worsen, which cells coordinate by adjusting their growth rate. At the population level, per capita growth rate is a sensitive metric of [...]
L’espèce incertaine et les taxons flous
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
La question de la « bonne » définition de l’espèce, qui unit les biologistes, les naturalistes et les personnes impliquées dans l’usage ou la conservation de la biodiversité, est constamment réactualisée par les progrès des connaissances sur l’évolution et la spéciation. Cette question est loin [...]
Genetic variation of heat tolerance in a model ectotherm: an approach using thermal death time curves
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
The assessment of thermal tolerance holds significant importance in predicting the physiological responses of ectotherms, particularly in elucidating their capacity for evolutionary adaptation in the context of global warming. Current approaches to assessing thermal tolerance have limitations that can lead to misleading results, especially with regard to the heritability of thermal limits. [...]
Curating reserve level species lists in an era of diverse and dynamic data sources
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Dynamic yet accurate reserve-level species lists are essential for conservation and biodiversity research. Even when such lists exist, changing taxonomy, ongoing species migrations and invasions, and new discoveries of historically overlooked species mean static lists can become rapidly outdated. Biodiversity databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and citizen science [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Tropical East Pacific
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mangroves of the Tropical East Pacific (TEP) province is a regional ecosystem subgroup (Level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology), present in the coastal ecoregions of the Mexican Tropical Pacific, Chiapas-Nicaragua, Nicoya, Panama Bight, and Guayaquil. In 2020, mangroves cover 7782 km2 in the province, representing 5.3% of the global coverage. In the province, there are eight true [...]
Identity crisis? News reports on invasive species feature misleading images of unrelated organisms
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
In mainstream media, news outlets play a vital role in raising awareness and rallying public support for managing invasive species. However, news reports on invasive species occasionally feature misleading images of unrelated organisms. In this correspondence, I illustrate the problem with recent international news reports on invasions by Red Imported Fire Ants (Solenopsis invicta) in Asia, [...]
Symbiont community changes confer fitness benefits for larvae, but not juveniles, in a vertically transmitting coral
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Coral reefs worldwide are threatened by increasing ocean temperatures because of the sensitivity of the coral-algal symbiosis to thermal stress. Reef building corals form mutualistic symbiotic relationships with dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae), including those species which acquire their initial symbiont complement from their parents. Changes in the composition of symbiont communities, [...]
Heat tolerance and its plasticity in freshwater and marine fishes are linked to their thermal regimes.
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Responses to climate change are rooted in thermal physiology, and many studies have focussed on heat tolerance and plasticity of heat tolerance. Latitudinal patterns in heat tolerance are commonly considered to reflect latitudinal differences in thermal regimes, but direct tests are few. Here we show that the extremes and fluctuations in habitat temperature explain variation in heat tolerance of [...]
Genes from space: Leveraging Earth Observation satellites to monitor genetic diversity
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Genetic diversity within and among populations is essential for species persistence. While targets and indicators for genetic diversity are captured in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, assessing genetic diversity across many species at national and regional scales remains challenging. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) need accessible tools for reliable and [...]
Climatic Variability Shapes Plasticity of Hydric and Thermal Physiology in Tropical Geckos
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Phenotypic plasticity in reptiles is a key mechanism enabling individuals to maintain and optimize physiological responses to changing environments. The ability to adjust metabolic rates and thermal physiology in response to seasonal changes is known to be central to the physiological ecology of some reptiles, but less is known about reptiles’ ability to exhibit seasonal flexibility in rates of [...]
Gehyra Geckos Prioritise Warm Over Humid Environments
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Maintaining stable hydric and thermal states are dual challenges for reptiles that inhabit terrestrial environments with variable conditions across time and space. Under some conditions, reptiles face a conundrum where both physiological parameters cannot be simultaneously maintained at optimal states by behavioural or physiological means. Prioritisation of behavioural regulation of hydric or [...]
Climate Does Not Predict Thermal and Hydric Traits in Northern Australian Geckos
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Reptiles are challenged with maintaining stable hydric states and viable body temperatures in a variable terrestrial environment. Reptiles can use behaviour to select favourable microhabitats as well as physiological adaptations, such as increased skin resistance to water loss to regulate their hydric and thermal states. The degree to which a species’ physiology is adapted to overcome [...]
Predator activity, proactive anti-predator strategies, and nesting phenology produce a dynamic landscape of risk to tundra goose reproduction
Published: 2024-06-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Birds generally rely on proactive anti-predator strategies when selecting nest sites, as they have limited options to adapt to changing levels of risk once incubation begins. Arctic waterfowl often nest colonially as an anti-predator strategy but dispersed-breeding species may use other proactive strategies, such as nesting in less risky areas. However, empirical links between spatial patterns of [...]
Did organs precede organisms in the dawn of life?
Published: 2024-06-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Evolutionary processes acting on molecule populations and their assemblies preceded the origin of living organisms. These prebiotic world entities were (re)produced; that is, independently produced by the assembly of their components, following an iterative process giving rise to identical entities, recalling the progeny resulting from self-reproduction. Before the dawn of life, natural selection [...]