Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Published: 2023-03-13
Subjects: Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Multivariate Analysis, Population Biology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Ecological communities are dynamic. These dynamics are influenced by many sources of variation, making it difficult to understand or predict future change. Biotic interactions, and other sources of multi-species dependence, are major contributors. But ecological prediction overwhelmingly focuses on models that treat individual species in isolation. Here, we model the relative importance of [...]
Published: 2023-03-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Prophages, latent viral elements residing in bacterial genomes impact bacterial ecology and evolution in diverse ways. Do these prophage-mediated effects extend beyond the prophage-bacterium relationship? Here, I summarize the latest advances exploring how the impact of prophages are transmitted through multiple levels with potential impacts on ecosystem stability and functioning. The diverse [...]
Published: 2023-03-07
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Ecogeographical rules, describing common trends in animal form across space and time, have provided key insights into the primary factors driving species diversity on our planet. Among the most well-known ecogeographical rules are Bergmann’s Rule and Allen’s rule, with each correlating ambient temperature to the size and shape of endotherms within a species. These two rules have recently [...]
Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
While various fungi could facilitate soil C storage and climate change mitigation via carbon (C) cycling, standard soil C tests that measure only bulk soil C cannot disentangle mechanisms underpinning fungal influences and so far research has largely focused on mycorrhizal fungi. Here, we assessed the soil C storage potential of 12 non-mycorrhizal fungi, selected from a wide pool based on traits [...]
Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Life Sciences
High-latitude soils contain up to 60% of the world’s carbon stocks, but are vulnerable to carbon loss as climate change alters temperature and precipitation, litter quality, and soil biota. Tundra soils are thought to be particularly sensitive to warming due to accelerated permafrost thaw, but quantifying the response of decomposition to changing soil moisture remains a challenge. Understanding [...]
Published: 2023-03-02
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Cannibalistic behaviour between tadpoles of dendrobatoid poison frogs has been observed in several species with complex parental care dynamics, leading to the idea that it may have played a role in the evolution of parental care. However, the existence or characteristics of this behaviour remain largely unknown beyond a handful of well-studied species. I report direct and indirect observations of [...]
Published: 2023-02-27
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology
Understanding the nutritional requirements of captive animals is necessary for proper animal husbandry, however, the specific dietary requirements for many amphibian species commonly kept in captivity are unknown. Like most vertebrates, frogs cannot synthesize carotenoids or vitamin A, and must therefore obtain these essential nutrients through diet. It is unclear if amphibians can cleave [...]
Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Systems Biology
The growth of microbial populations in nature is dynamic, as the cellular physiology and environment of these populations change. Understanding the growth dynamics of these populations has wide-ranging consequences for their ecology and evolution; it may also be critical for clinical and environmental applications in which we need to promote or inhibit microbial growth. Here we review the [...]
Published: 2023-02-22
Subjects: Life Sciences
Across free-living organisms, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology is shaped by interactions with biotic and abiotic environments during dispersal and early establishment in new habitats. However, the ecology and evolution of offspring morphology for symbiotic species has been largely ignored despite host-symbiont interactions being ubiquitous in all ecosystems and across all [...]
Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Biology, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Many perennial plants in semi-arid rangelands have experienced population declines, and understanding the ecological and demographic processes behind these declines is important to slowing or reversing them. Although anthropogenic disturbances have driven declines across many landscapes, other sorts of environmental variability, such as the differences in intensity of solar radiation with aspect, [...]
Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Life Sciences
Plasmids shape microbial communities' diversity, structure, and function. Nevertheless, we lack a mechanistic understanding of how community structure and dynamics emerge from local microbe-plasmid interactions and co-evolution. Addressing this gap is challenging because multiple processes operate simultaneously at multiple levels of organization. For example, immunity operates between a plasmid [...]
Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology
Most of what is known about extra-pair paternity in hole-nesting birds derives from studies using artificial nesting sites, such as nestboxes. However, it has rarely been investigated whether inference drawn from breeding events taking place in nestboxes matches what would be observed under natural conditions, i.e. in natural cavities. We here report on a variation in promiscuity in blue tits and [...]
Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
We surveyed endangered Masai giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) at Oloirien Group Ranch (OGR) and Oloisukut Conservancy (OC) in Kenya to determine their conservation potential. Here, Maasai settlements, livestock, and predator control result in lion densities less than half that of adjacent protected areas. Using surveys and photographic mark-recapture (PMR), we annually calculated [...]
Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Work carried out since the late 70s has provided key insights into the comparative biomechanics, kinematics, behaviour, and neurobiology of fish escape responses. With environmental change expected to affect the physiology and biomechanics of aquatic ectotherms, there is a growing interest in understanding how environmental stressors impact the swimming performance and behaviour of fishes during [...]
Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Evolution, Life Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology
If the traits of more successful individuals are more likely to be adopted, the resulting cultural transmission is described as being success-biased. Prestige may be used as a proxy for success. Here, we model prestige bias as a combination of indirect success bias and influence bias, the latter meaning that the choice of a role-model depends on the number of individuals that have already copied [...]