Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences

IUCN Red List of Ecosystem assessment: Tropical glacier ecosystem of the Cordillera de Mérida

José Rafael Ferrer-Paris, Luis Daniel Llambi, Alejandra Melfo, et al.

Published: 2023-10-23
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Life Sciences

This document uses the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems guidelines to diagnose the collapse of the Tropical glacier ecosystems of the Cordillera de Mérida in Venezuela. Tropical glaciers are rapidly disappearing, particularly in isolated mountain peaks and lower elevations. These glaciers are fundamental substrates for unique cryogenic ecosystems in tropical environments where the ice, melting [...]

Treating gaps and biases in biodiversity data as a missing data problem

Diana Bowler, Rob James Boyd, Corey T Callaghan, et al.

Published: 2023-10-22
Subjects: Life Sciences

Big biodiversity datasets have great potential for monitoring and research because of their large taxonomic, geographic and temporal scope. Such datasets have become especially important for assessing the temporal change of species’ populations and distributions. Gaps in the available data, however, often hinder drawing large-scale inferences about species’ trends. Here, we conceptualise [...]

Mobilising central bank digital currency to bend the curve of biodiversity loss

Joseph Millard

Published: 2023-10-21
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Business, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Humanity is at a critical juncture. Despite our efforts to set targets and goals, biodiversity and climate are both changing rapidly, pushing us towards a biosphere our species has not known. To solve this problem one view is that we need transformational change of the economic paradigm, but that might be more an ideal than pragmatic. A new idea could be to take inspiration from recent [...]

How structural variants shape avian phenotypes: lessons from model systems

María Recuerda, Leonardo Campagna

Published: 2023-10-21
Subjects: Life Sciences

Despite receiving significant recent attention, the relevance of Structural Variation (SV) in driving phenotypic diversity remains understudied. Advances in long-read sequencing, bioinformatics and pangenomic approaches, enhance SV detection. We review the role of SVs in shaping phenotypes in avian model systems, and identify general patterns in SV type, length, and their associated traits. [...]

Integrating ecological feedbacks across scales and levels of organization

Benoît Pichon, Sonia Kefi, Nicolas Loeuille, et al.

Published: 2023-10-19
Subjects: Life Sciences

In ecosystems, species interact in various ways with other species, and with their local environment. In addition, ecosystems are coupled in space by diverse types of flows. From these links connecting different ecological entities can emerge circular pathways of indirect effects: feedback loops. This contributes to creating a nested set of ecological feedbacks operating at different [...]

Darwinian Pond System as a Model for the Establishment of Life on the Archaian Earth

Javier Burgos-Salcedo, Carolina Sierra

Published: 2023-10-18
Subjects: Life Sciences

The main doubt that exists about the appearance and subsequent development of life on earth, regardless of whether its origin is due to panspermia or abiogenesis processes, is related to the necessary conditions so that, once implanted or synthesized, life can be established and prosper. Following the idea proposed by Darwin in 1873 that the origin of life took place in "warm shallow pools" [...]

Anisogamy does not always promote the evolution of mating competition traits in males

Mattias Siljestam, Ivain Ivain Martinossi-Allibert

Published: 2023-10-18
Subjects: Life Sciences

Anisogamy has evolved in most sexually reproducing multicellular organisms allowing the definition of the male and female sexes, producing small and large gametes. Anisogamy, as the initial sexual dimorphism, is a good starting point to understand the evolution of further sexual dimorphisms. For instance, it is generally accepted that anisogamy sets the stage for more intense mating competition [...]

Fifteen years of extensive and inadvertent elasmobranch trade in Brazil detected by DNA tools

Marcela Alvarenga, Ingrid Vasconcellos Bunholi, Gustavo Reis de Brito, et al.

Published: 2023-10-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences

The trade of elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) in Brazil raises significant concerns due to the country's rich endemic biodiversity. The present study explores the use of DNA-based tools to monitor the Brazilian elasmobranch trade, focusing on their role in identifying processed products and supporting conservation efforts. A systematic search of literature was carried out and included 35 [...]

Multinational evaluation of genetic diversity indicators for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Monitoring framework

Alicia Mastretta-Yanes, Jessica da Silva, Catherine E. Grueber, et al.

Published: 2023-10-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences

In December 2022, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, in which 196 Parties, for the first time, committed to report on the status of genetic diversity for all species. To facilitate this reporting, three genetic diversity indicators were developed, two of which focus on the processes contributing to genetic [...]

Towards causal relationships for modelling species distribution

Daniele Da Re, Enrico Tordoni, Jonathan Lenoir, et al.

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Statistical Models

1. Understanding the processes underlying the distribution of species through space and time is fundamental in several research fields spanning from ecology to spatial epidemiology. Correlative species distribution models (SDMs) involve popular statistical tools to infer species geographical distribution thanks to spatiotemporally explicit observations of species occurrences coupled with a set of [...]

Shedding light on nocturnal behavior: A cost-effective solution for remote, infrared video recording in the field

Jay A. Stafstrom, Ronald R Hoy

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Life Sciences

For behavioral ecologists who study nocturnal animals, recording behavior at night is essential, but expensive. Infrared (IR) sensitive camcorders can easily cost over $1,000 USD, yet these pricey cameras rarely stand up to the elements in the field, and pose great financial risk if left unattended overnight. Here, I provide a field-tested method to record nocturnal behavior at a fraction of the [...]

Remote extracellular attacks on bacteriophage

Lisa Freund, Marie Vasse, Gregory J. Velicer

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Bacteriophages and their hosts co-evolve while exploiting and defending against the other, respectively. Known anti-phage defences prevent attachment to the cell or target phage nucleic acids within the cell; variation in such defences shapes phage host range. While investigating the host range of the virulent myxophage Mx1 among natural isolates of the social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus, we [...]

Dispersal and eco-evolutionary dynamics in antagonistic species interactions

Giacomo Zilio, Jhelam N. Deshpande, Alison B. Duncan, et al.

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Life Sciences

Dispersal fuels the interplay between ecology, evolution and adaptation across spatial and temporal scales. Dispersal also determines the encounter between natural enemies and can produce eco-evolutionary feedbacks with potentially profound consequences for the geographic distribution and genetic diversity of antagonistically interacting species. Although both dispersal and interaction traits, [...]

Avian zoochory is a probable pathway of European perch colonization in artificial lakes: a reply to Vasemägi et al (2023)

Flavien Garcia, Ivan Paz-Vinas, Arnaud Gaujard, et al.

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Applications of Machine Learning in Phylogenetics

Yu K Mo, Matthew Hahn, Megan L Smith

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences

Machine learning has increasingly been applied to a wide range of questions in phylogenetic inference. Supervised machine learning approaches that rely on simulated training data have been used to infer tree topologies and branch lengths, to select substitution models, and to perform downstream inferences of introgression and diversification. Here, we review how researchers have used several [...]

search

You can search by:

  • Title
  • Keywords
  • Author Name
  • Author Affiliation