Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Evolutionary walks through flower color space driven by gene expression in Petunia and allies (Petunieae)
Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The structure and function of biochemical and developmental pathways determine the range of accessible phenotypes, which are the substrate for evolutionary change. Accordingly, we expect that observed phenotypic variation across species is strongly influenced by pathway structure, with different phenotypes arising due to changes in activity along pathway branches. Here, we use flower colour as a [...]
The impact of helping on helper life-history and fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird
Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Cooperative breeding occurs when helpers provide alloparental care to the offspring of a breeding pair. One hypothesis of why helping occurs is that helpers gain valuable experience (skills) that may increase their own future reproductive success. However, research typically focuses on the effect of helping on short-term measures of reproductive success. Fewer studies have considered how helping [...]
Bacterial multicellular behavior in antiviral defense
Published: 2023-02-02
Subjects: Life Sciences
Multicellular behaviour benefits seemingly simple organisms such as bacteria, by improving nutrient uptake, resistance to stresses or by providing advantages in predatory interactions. Several recent studies have shown that this also extends to the defense against bacteriophages, which are omnipresent in almost all habitats. In this review, we summarize strategies conferring protection against [...]
The advertisement call of Mannophryne lamarcai Mijares-Urrutia et Arends 1999 (Anura: Dendrobatidae)
Published: 2023-01-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
The genus Mannophryne includes 19 described species from Venezuela and two species from Trinidad and Tobago. We described for the first time the advertisement call of Mannophryne lamarcai, an endemic and Critically Endangered species from the Cerro Socopó at western Venezuela. M. lamarcai was spatially restricted in appropriate habitats. Males were calling actively on top of rocks and fallen [...]
Using repeatability of performance within and across contexts to validate measures of behavioral flexibility
Published: 2023-01-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Research into animal cognitive abilities is increasing quickly and often uses methods where behavioral performance on a task is assumed to represent variation in the underlying cognitive trait. However, because these methods rely on behavioral responses as a proxy for cognitive ability, it is important to validate that the task structure does, in fact, target the cognitive trait of interest [...]
Virtual Reef Diver: enabling people to help protect the Great Barrier Reef
Published: 2023-01-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Two Sustainable Development Goals are focused directly on combating the impacts of climate change on coral reef communities. These are: Goal 13 “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” and Goal 14 “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”. Citizen science (CS) features prominently in a range of programs that have been [...]
Determinants of synergistic cell-cell interactions in bacteria
Published: 2023-01-27
Subjects: Life Sciences
Bacteria are ubiquitous and colonize virtually every conceivable habitat on earth. To achieve this, bacteria require different metabolites and biochemical capabilities. Rather than trying to produce all of the needed materials by themselves, bacteria have evolved a range of synergistic interactions, in which they exchange different commodities with other members of their local community. While it [...]
Fine-scale interplay between decline and growth determines the spatial recovery of coral communities within a reef
Published: 2023-01-25
Subjects: Life Sciences
As coral reefs endure increasing levels of disturbance, understanding recovery patterns of reef-building hard corals is paramount to assessing the sustainability of these ecosystems. At local scales, coral recovery slows down; however, it's unclear how this trend propagates across spatial scales due to the inherent complexity of coral dynamics. In this paper, we aimed to learn about fine scale [...]
More Than Half of Statistically Significant Research Findings in the Environmental Sciences are Actually Not
Published: 2023-01-25
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Researchers have incentives to search for and selectively report findings that appear to be statistically significant and/or conform to prior beliefs. Such selective reporting practices, including p-hacking and publication bias, can lead to a distorted set of results being published, potentially undermining the process of knowledge accumulation and evidence-based decision making. We take stock of [...]
Meta-community processes supersede leaf subsidy effects on lake aquatic communities
Published: 2023-01-24
Subjects: Life Sciences
There is a growing consensus that cross-ecosystem fluxes significantly influence the structure and stability of aquatic communities. What remains unclear, however, is the relative importance and potential interactions of those fluxes to/with other well-studied factors affecting aquatic community structure such as local environmental parameters or regional-scale influences related to connectivity [...]
The impact of rising temperatures on the prevalence of coral diseases and its predictability: a global meta-analysis
Published: 2023-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistical Models
Coral reefs are under threat from disease as climate change alters environmental conditions. Rising temperatures exacerbate coral disease, but this relationship is likely complex as other factors also influence coral disease prevalence. To better understand this relationship, we meta-analytically examined 108 studies for changes in global coral disease over time alongside temperature, expressed [...]
Marine cleaning mutualisms provide new insights in biological market dynamics
Published: 2023-01-23
Subjects: Life Sciences
Most mutually beneficial social interactions (cooperation within species, mutualism between species) involve some degree of partner choice. In an analogy to economic theory as applied to human trading practices, biological market theory (BMT) focusses on how partner choice affects payoff distributions among non-human traders. BMT has inspired a great diversity of research, including research on [...]
Sex-specific covariation between exploratory behavior and natal dispersal strategies in a natural cooperative breeding passerine population
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Natal dispersal is a major life-history strategy that has pervasive consequences on the spatial and genetic structure of populations. Between-individual variation in personality traits is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of natal dispersal via ‘personality-dependent dispersal’. However, few studies have investigated the importance of personalities in the context of delayed [...]
Psychological and Cultural Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescription
Published: 2023-01-20
Subjects: Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Psychiatry and Psychology
Humans have been giving a selective advantage to antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide by inundating the environment with antimicrobials for about one century. As a result, the efficacy of antibiotics has been impaired. Antibiotic resistance is a public health problem, responsible for increases in mortality and extended stays at hospitals. Hospitals and other clinical settings have implemented [...]
The Ecological Relevance of Critical Thermal Maxima Methodology (CTM) for Fishes
Published: 2023-01-14
Subjects: Life Sciences
Critical thermal maxima methodology (CTM) has been used to infer acute upper thermal tolerance in fishes since the 1950s, yet its ecological relevance remains debated. Here, we synthesize evidence to identify methodological concerns and common misconceptions that have limited the interpretation of CTmax (value for an individual fish during one trial) in ecological and evolutionary studies of [...]