Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Mapping migratory routes: Avian conservation-focused opportunities for a pan-European automated telemetry network
Published: 2024-07-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
Accelerated biodiversity loss during the Anthropocene has destabilised functional links within and between ecosystems. Migratory species that cross different ecosystems on their repeated journeys between breeding and non-breeding sites are particularly sensitive to global change because they are exposed to various, often ecosystem-specific threats. As these bring both lethal and non-lethal [...]
Precision Pathway Engineering in Plants: Enhancing Crop Resilience and Productivity for Sustainable Agriculture
Published: 2024-07-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Recent advancements in metabolic engineering have opened new avenues for addressing critical challenges in agriculture, nutrition, and sustainability. This study explores innovative strategies for manipulating plant metabolic pathways to enhance crop yield, nutritional value, stress tolerance, and the production of high-value compounds. We present novel findings on improving photosynthetic [...]
Assisted colonisation for ecosystem function: a thought experiment for the British Isles
Published: 2024-07-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Climate change is driving the rapid reorganisation of the world’s biota as species shift their ranges to track suitable conditions, however habitat fragmentation and other barriers hinder this adaptive response for species with limited dispersal ability. The translocation of species into newly suitable areas to which they are unable to disperse naturally has been suggested to conserve species [...]
Experimental evolution of a mammalian holobiont: the genetic and maternal effects in bank voles selected for herbivorous capability
Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Mammalian herbivory represents a complex adaptation requiring evolutionary changes across all levels of biological organization, from molecules to morphology to behavior. Explaining the evolution of such complex traits represents a major challenge in biology, simultaneously muddled and enlightened by a growing awareness of the crucial role of symbiotic associations in shaping organismal [...]
Mate-switching is not associated with offspring fitness in a socially monogamous bird
Published: 2024-07-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
In many species, individuals form socially monogamous pair-bonds lasting multiple breeding seasons, or even whole lifetimes. Studies often suggest social monogamy to be adaptive, but this is usually quantified through the survival and annual reproductive success of the partners. However, beyond the number of offspring produced, parental partnerships may also affect their offspring’s phenotype, [...]
gibbonNetR: an R Package for the Use of Convolutional Neural Networks for Automated Detection of 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 accessible to more practitioners. However, there are few deep learning approaches that can be implemented natively in R. The 'torch for R' ecosystem has [...]
Competition for pollen deposition space on pollinators generates last-male advantage
Published: 2024-07-13
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 like Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) [...]
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: 2024-07-05
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: 2024-07-05
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: 2024-07-05
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 [...]
Cool topoclimates promote cold-adapted plant diversity in temperate mountain forests.
Published: 2024-07-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Climate strongly influences 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 (i.e. microclimate), especially in lowland forests. In mountain forests, however, the influence of topography in environmental conditions (i.e., topoclimate) is ought to also influence [...]
From eggs to adulthood: sustained effects of early developmental temperature and corticosterone exposure on physiology and body size in an Australian lizard
Published: 2024-06-29
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 [...]