Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Increased adoption of best practices in ecological forecasting enables comparisons of forecastability
Published: 2021-04-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Near-term iterative forecasting is a powerful tool for ecological decision support and has the potential to transform our understanding of ecological predictability. However, to this point, there has been no cross-ecosystem analysis of near-term ecological forecasts, making it difficult to synthesize diverse research efforts and prioritize future developments for this emerging field. In this [...]
Evolution of pathogen tolerance and emerging infections: A missing experimental paradigm
Published: 2021-04-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Researchers worldwide are repeatedly warning us against future zoonotic diseases resulting from mankind’s insurgence into natural ecosystems. The same zoonotic pathogens that cause severe infections in a human host fail to produce any disease outcome in their natural hosts. What precise features of the immune system enable natural reservoirs to carry these pathogens so efficiently? To understand [...]
Potential bioavailability of representative pyrogenic organic matter compounds in comparison to natural dissolved organic matter pools
Published: 2021-04-27
Subjects: Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) from wildfires impacts river corridors globally and is widely regarded as resistant to biological degradation. Though recent work suggests PyOM may be more bioavailable than historically perceived, estimating bioavailability across its chemical spectrum remains elusive. To address this knowledge gap, we assessed potential bioavailability of representative PyOM [...]
Sex-specific behavioral syndromes allow the independent evolution of behavioral dimorphism
Published: 2021-04-27
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
When selection differs by sex, the capacity for sexes to reach optimal phenotypes can be constrained by the shared genome of males and females. Because phenotypic traits are often correlated, this difference extends across multiple traits and underlying genetic correlations can further constrain evolutionary responses. Behaviors are frequently correlated as behavioral syndromes, and these [...]
Bringing Disciplines And People Together To Characterize The Plastic And Genetic Responses Of Molluscs To Environmental Change
Published: 2021-04-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mollusks are remarkably diverse and are found across nearly all ecosystems, meaning that members of this ancient animal phylum provide a powerful means to study genomic-phenotype connections in a climate change framework. Recent advances in genomic sequencing technologies and genome assembly approaches finally allow the relatively cheap and tractable assembly of high-quality mollusk genome [...]
Primate malarias as a model for cross-species parasite transmission
Published: 2021-04-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Parasites regularly switch into new host species, representing a disease burden and conservation risk to the hosts. The distribution of these parasites also gives insight into characteristics of ecological networks and genetic mechanisms of host-parasite interactions. Some parasites are shared across many species, whereas others tend to be restricted to hosts from a single species. Understanding [...]
Terminology use in animal personality research: a self-report questionnaire and a systematic review
Published: 2021-04-21
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Whether animal personality studies provide insights of broader evolutionary and ecological relevance to the field of behavioural ecology is frequently questioned. One of the sources of controversy is the vast, but often vague terminology present in the field. From a statistical perspective, animal personality is defined as among-individual variance in behaviour. However, numerous conceptual [...]
How feedback and feed-forward mechanisms link determinants of social dominance
Published: 2021-04-20
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
In many animal societies, individuals differ consistently in their ability to win agonistic interactions, resulting in dominance hierarchies. These differences arise due to a range of factors that can influence individuals’ abilities to win agonistic interactions, spanning from genetically driven traits through to individuals’ recent interaction history. Yet, despite a century of study since [...]
Drivers and Consequences of Partial Migration in an Alpine Bird Species
Published: 2021-04-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
1. Partial migration, where a portion of the population migrates between winter and summer (breeding) areas and the rest remains year-round resident, is a common phenomenon across several taxonomic groups. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain why some individuals migrate while others stay resident, as well as the fitness consequences of the different strategies. Yet, the drivers [...]
The European Turtle Dove in the ecotone between woodland and farmland: multi-scale habitat associations and implications for the design of management interventions
Published: 2021-04-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The European Turtle Dove (turtle dove) is a globally threatened species that is undergoing a sustained and generalised decline across its breeding range, with habitat deterioration and loss suggested as the main driver. Here, we review the scientific literature on habitat associations across the European breeding range, in relation to turtle dove distribution, breeding numbers, nesting substrates [...]
Estimating complex ecological variables at high resolution in heterogeneous terrain using multivariate matching algorithms
Published: 2021-04-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Multivariate Analysis, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Statistics and Probability
1. Simulation models are valuable tools for estimating ecosystem structure and function under various climatic and environmental conditions and disturbance regimes, and are particularly relevant for investigating the potential impacts of climate change on ecosystems. However, because computational requirements can restrict the number of feasible simulations, they are often run at coarse scales or [...]
Sponges facilitate primary producers in a Bahamas seagrass system
Published: 2021-04-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Seagrass beds are important coastal ecosystems worldwide that are shaped by facilitative interactions. Recent theoretical work has emphasized the potential for facilitative interactions involving foundation species to be destabilized in the face of anthropogenic change. Consequently, it is important to identify which taxa facilitate seagrasses. In other ecosystems, sponges contribute to the [...]
Reefscape genomics: leveraging advances in 3D imaging to assess fine-scale patterns of genomic variation on coral reefs
Published: 2021-04-16
Subjects: Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Coral reefs across the world are undergoing rapid deterioration, and understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that govern these ecosystems is critical to our ability to protect them. Molecular ecological studies have been instrumental in advancing such understanding, and while initially focused primarily on broad-scale patterns, they have gradually uncovered the prevalence of local [...]
El histórico Acuerdo de Escazú: una oportunidad para integrar democracia, derechos humanos y conservación transfronteriza
Published: 2021-04-13
Subjects: Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) es una de las regiones con mayor biodiversidad, sin embargo, esta se encuentra amenazada por la sobreexplotación de recursos naturales y por conflictos sociales internos. En el 2018, 33 países de la región ALC fueron invitados a firmar y ratificar el histórico Acuerdo de Escazú, el cual es el primer acuerdo de carácter vinculante que integra de manera explícita [...]
Broad-scale Applications of the Raspberry Pi: A Review and Guide for Biologists
Published: 2021-04-13
Subjects: Biology, Biotechnology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The field of biology has seen tremendous technological progress in recent years, fuelled by the exponential growth in processing power and high-level computing, and the rise of global information sharing. Low-cost single-board computers are predicted to be one of the key technological advancements to further revolutionise this field. So far, an overview of current uptake of these devices and a [...]