Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Two-step CRISPR-Cas9 protocol for transposable element deletion in D. melanogaster natural populations
Published: 2023-02-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
This protocol generates a precise deletion of a transposable element (TE) in a natural population of Drosophila melanogaster using two steps of CRISPR-Cas9 homology-directed repair. In the first step, the TE is replaced by a fluorescent marker, while in the second CRISPR-Cas9 step the fluorescence marker is removed to avoid any possible effect of the introduced marker sequence. This two-step [...]
USE it: uniformly sampling pseudo-absences within the environmental space for applications in habitat suitability models
Published: 2023-02-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Habitat suitability models infer the geographical distribution of species using occurrence data and environmental variables. While data on species presence are increasingly accessible, the difficulty to confirm real absences in the field often forces researchers to generate them in silico. To this aim, pseudo-absences are commonly randomly sampled across the study area (i.e., the geographical [...]
Environmental insults and compensative responses: when microbiome meets cancer
Published: 2023-02-11
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Organismal Biological Physiology, Other Microbiology, Pathogenic Microbiology
Tumor microenvironment has recently been ascribed a new hallmark – the polymorphic microbiome. Accumulating evidence regarding the tissue specific territories of tumor-microbiome have opened new and interesting avenues. A pertinent question is regarding the functional consequence of the meeting of the host-microbiome with cancer. Given microbial communities have predominantly been explored [...]
Disentangling human nature: Anthropological reflections on evolution, zoonoses and ethnographic investigations
Published: 2023-02-11
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Human nature is a puzzling matter that must be analysed through a holistic lens. In this commentary, I foray into anthropology's biosocial dimensions to underscore that human relations span from microorganisms to global commodities. I argue that the future of social-cultural anthropology depends on the integration of evolutionary theory for its advancement. Ultimately, since the likelihood of [...]
Keep your cool: Overwintering physiology in response to urbanization in the acorn ant, Temnothorax curvispinosus
Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Winter presents a challenge for survival, yet temperate ectotherms have remarkable physiological adaptations to cope with low-temperature conditions. Under recent climate change, rather than strictly relaxing pressure on overwintering survival, warmer winters can instead disrupt these low-temperature trait-environment associations, with negative consequences for populations. While there is [...]
A novel method for measuring acute thermal tolerance in fish embryos
Published: 2023-02-07
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Aquatic ectotherms are particularly vulnerable to thermal stress, with certain life stages (embryos) predicted to be more sensitive than others (juveniles and adults). When examining the vulnerability of species and life stages to warming, it is particularly important to use appropriate and comparable methodology so that robust conclusions can be obtained. Critical thermal methodology (CTM) is [...]
What acoustic telemetry can and can’t tell us about fish biology
Published: 2023-02-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Zoology
Acoustic telemetry (AT) has become ubiquitous in aquatic monitoring and fish biology, conservation and management. Since the early use of active ultrasonic tracking that required researchers to follow at a distance their species of interest, the field has diversified considerably with exciting advances in both hydrophone and transmitter technology. Once a highly specialised methodology however, [...]
Lags in the response of plant assemblages to global warming depends on temperature-change velocity
Published: 2023-02-06
Subjects: Life Sciences
Aim: Current global warming is driving changes in biological assemblages by increasing the number of thermophilic species while reducing the number of cold-adapted species, leading to thermophilization of these assemblages. However, there is increasing evidence that thermophilization might not keep pace with global warming, resulting in thermal lags. Here, we quantify the magnitude of thermal [...]
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 [...]