Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new context
Published: 2022-01-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Behavioral flexibility, the ability to adapt behavior to new circumstances, is thought to play an important role in a species' ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range. However, flexibility is rarely directly tested in a way that would allow us to determine how flexibility works to predict a species' ability to adapt their behavior to new environments. We [...]
Ecogeography of group size suggests differences in drivers of sociality among cooperatively breeding fairywrens
Published: 2022-01-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Cooperatively breeding species exhibit a range of social behaviors associated with different costs and benefits to group-living, often in association with different environmental conditions. For example, species in which collective-care of offspring reduces the cost of reproduction are more common in harsh environments (true cooperative breeding), while species that collectively defend resources [...]
Evaluating critiques of evidence of historically heterogeneous structure and mixed-severity fires across dry-forest landscapes of the western USA
Published: 2021-12-30
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
The structure and role of fire in historical dry forests, ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and dry mixed-conifer forests, of the western USA, have been debated for 25 years, leaving two theories. The first, that these forests were relatively uniform, low in tree density and dominated by low- to moderate-severity fires was recently reviewed, including a critique of opposing evidence. The second, [...]
Detecting Signatures Of Selection In Regulatory Variation
Published: 2021-12-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences
A substantial amount of phenotypic diversity results from changes in gene regulation. Understanding how regulatory diversity evolves is therefore a key priority in identifying mechanisms of adaptive change. However, in contrast to powerful models of sequence evolution, we lack a consensus model of regulatory evolution. Furthermore, recent work has shown that many of the comparative approaches [...]
Estuarine zooplankton responses to flood pulses and a hypoxic blackwater event
Published: 2021-12-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Flood pulses in estuaries following storms and rainfall events, are short-lived but important moments for a range of ecosystem processes including the delivery of resources and promoting productivity. Conversely some flood pulses can lead to adverse outcomes such as poor water quality conditions. The aim of this study was to determine how zooplankton abundance and community composition responded [...]
Statistical inference for seed mortality and germination with seed bank experiments
Published: 2021-12-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Plant population ecologists regularly study soil seed banks with seed bag burial and seed addition experiments. These experiments contribute crucial data to demographic models, but we lack standard methods to analyze them. Here, we propose statistical models to estimate seed mortality and germination with observations from these experiments. We develop these models following principles of event [...]
Preserving avian blood and DNA sampled in the wild: a survey of personal experiences
Published: 2021-12-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Collecting and storing biological material from wild animals in a way that does not deteriorate data quality for analyses using DNA is instrumental for research in ecology and evolution. Our aims were to collect methods commonly used by researchers for the field collection and long-term storage of blood samples and DNA extracts from wild birds and gather reports on their effectiveness. Personal [...]
Identify, quantify, act: tackling the unused potential of ecological research
Published: 2021-12-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
‘Ignorance is expensive’. The statement also applies to ignorance of research inefficiencies that can generate huge waste: 85% of health research, amounting to $170 billion annually, is avoidably wasted. This alarming finding elicited a number of responses that have since reduced the waste in health research. Commonality of research and dissemination practices implies that other scientific fields [...]
Source and seasonality of epizootic mycoplasmosis in free-ranging pronghorn (Antilocapra americana)
Published: 2021-12-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine
Mycoplasma bovis is an economically important bacterial pathogen of cattle and bison that most commonly causes pneumonia, polyarthritis and mastitis. M. bovis is prevalent in cattle and commercial bison; however, infections in other species are rare. In early 2019, we identified M. bovis in free-ranging pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) in northeastern Wyoming, USA. Here we report on additional [...]
LONG-TERM MONITORING OF THE EUROPEAN ROLLER (CORACIAS GARRULUS) IN UKRAINE: IS CLIMATE BEHIND THE CHANGES?
Published: 2021-12-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Since the 1980s there has been a long-term decline in numbers and contraction of range in Europe, including Ukraine. Our specific goals were to reconstruct the climatically suitable range of the species in Ukraine before the 1980s, gain better knowledge on its requirements, compare the past and current suitable areas, infer the regional and environmental variables that best explain its [...]
The evolutionary impacts of synonymous mutations
Published: 2021-12-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics
During the 50 years since the genetic code was cracked, our understanding of the evolutionary consequences of synonymous mutations has undergone a dramatic shift. Synonymous codon changes were initially considered selectively neutral, and as such, exemplars of evolution via genetic drift. However, the pervasive and non-negligible fitness impacts of synonymous mutations are now clear across [...]
Ecology and the Evolution of Sex Chromosomes
Published: 2021-12-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
This article reviews and discusses ecological factors that affect sex chromosome evolution. Sex chromosomes are common features of animal genomes, and are often the location where master sex determination genes are found. Many important aspects of sex chromosome evolution are thought to be driven by sex-specific selection pressures, such as sexual antagonism and sexual selection. Sex-specific [...]
Not so ancient: Misclassification of alpine plants biases the dating of the evolution of alpine biota in the Himalaya-Tibet Orogen
Published: 2021-12-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Ding et al. (Science 2020) proposed that the extant lineages of the alpine flora of the Tibet Himalaya Hengduan region emerged by the early Oligocene. We argue that these results are based on misclassifying high montane taxa as alpine and that their data support alpine habitats only at about 7.5 mio years before present.
State of the Amphibia 2020: A review of five years of amphibian research and existing resources
Published: 2021-12-16
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences
Amphibians are a clade of over 8,400 species that provide unique research opportunities and challenges. With amphibians undergoing severe global declines, we posit that assessing our current understanding of amphibians is imperative. Focusing on the past five years (2016–2020), we examine trends in amphibian research, data, and systematics. New species of amphibians continue to be described at a [...]
Genome sequence for the blue-flowered Andean shrub Iochroma cyaneum reveals extensive discordance across the berry clade of Solanaceae
Published: 2021-12-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences
The tomato family, Solanaceae, is a model clade for a wide range of applied and basic research questions. Currently, reference-quality genomes are available for over 30 species from seven genera, and these include numerous crops as well as wild species (e.g., Jaltomata sinuosa and Nicotiana attenuata). Here we present the genome of the showy-flowered Andean shrub Iochroma cyaneum, a woody lineage [...]