Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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" [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
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 [...]