Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Evolutionary principles shape the health of humanity as a planetary-scale organism
Published: 2024-12-02
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
A study of human social systems at planetary scale examines whether our technology, economy, culture, and flows of information are component-processes in a unified, living system. Through a biological lens of structure, function, and geographic mapping of social systems, we consider this total human ecosystem from evolutionary and developmental principles. The health of this system depends on its [...]
Home of the brave: is similarity of defensive behavior of Neotropical snakes (Dipsadidae: Pseudoboini) predicted by sympatry?
Published: 2024-11-30
Subjects: Life Sciences
Predation is a strong driver of prey behavior and sympatric species are exposed to similar selective predatory pressures.We test the hypothesis that this leads to similar anti-predator behaviors using the widespread Neotropical snake tribe Pseudoboini. We reviewed and compiled documented defensive behaviors for all species, adding new unreported behaviors for three species. We used a cluster [...]
Stronger together? A framework for studying population resilience to climate change impacts via social shielding
Published: 2024-11-29
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Climate change is driving a rapid increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events, leading to substantial alterations in climate patterns and other environmental conditions. These changes are often degrading habitats and increasing thermal, water, and nutritional stress for animals, thereby elevating general stress levels and imposing energetic costs. 2. Social behaviours [...]
IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, Mangroves of the Galapagos
Published: 2024-11-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mangroves of the Galapagos is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of Eastern Galapagos Islands, Northern Galapagos Islands, and Western Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos province mapped extent in 2014 was 36.6 km2, representing 0.03% of the global mangrove area. The biota is characterized by four species of true [...]
Stability in the Face of Global Decline: A 20-Year Study of Arthropods in an Oceanic Archipelago
Published: 2024-11-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
Insect declines have been reported globally but whilst island ecosystems are potentially facing exacerbated challenges, no long-term studies (LTER) have confirmed this trend. This study utilises the first available LTER data on island invertebrates, targeting epigeal and canopy arthropods from the Azores, and covering over 20 years in three distinct sampling events from 30 standard sites. We [...]
Fine-tuning mast seeding: as resources accumulate, plants become more sensitive to weather cues
Published: 2024-11-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Interannual variability of seed production, known as masting, has far-reaching ecological impacts including effects on forest regeneration and the population dynamics of seed consumers. It is important to understand the mechanisms driving masting to predict how plant populations and ecosystem dynamics may change into the future, and for short-term forecasting of seed production to aid management. [...]
Monitor Social-Ecological Systems to Achieve Global Goals for Biodiversity and Nature’s Contributions to People
Published: 2024-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
Integrating macroecology with temporal and trait-based perspectives : toward better attribution of human drivers to diversity changes
Published: 2024-11-26
Subjects: Life Sciences
The ongoing biodiversity crisis presents a complex challenge for ecological science. Despite a consensus on general biodiversity decline, identifying clear trends remains difficult due to variability in data, methodologies, and scales of analysis. To enhance our understanding of ongoing biodiversity changes and address discrepancies in biodiversity trend detection, we propose integrating [...]
New technology for an ancient fish: A lamprey life cycle modeling tool with an R Shiny application
Published: 2024-11-25
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Applied Statistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Population Biology, Systems Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Lampreys (Petromyzontiformes) are an ancient group of fishes with complex life histories. We created a life cycle model that includes an R Shiny interactive web application interface to simulate abundance by life stage. This will allow scientists and managers to connect available demographic information in a framework that can be applied to questions regarding lamprey biology and conservation. We [...]
Foraging actively can be advantageous in heterogeneous environments
Published: 2024-11-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
A wealth of evidence indicates that the existence of active foragers and sit-and-wait foragers is widespread in nature. While active foragers visit foraging sites and leave them randomly, sit-and-wait foragers only do so if the benefit of leaving exceeds the cost. This dichotomy has been documented in the larval and adult stages of Drosophila melanogaster. For instance, when exposed to a [...]
Towards a unified ontology for monitoring ecosystem services
Published: 2024-11-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has greatly evolved since it was first proposed and, as it gained popularity, has been used in diverse applications. Today, ES are an important part of global and national environmental policies. In this context, there is a call for the monitoring of ES to support their management. The proliferation of terms used with the concept of ES may be a barrier to [...]
Border biosecurity interceptions for air passengers – assessing intervention methods and analytic tools
Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Agriculture, Biosecurity, Life Sciences
At-border interventions are a critical step along the biosecurity continuum, to measure and control the risks associated with the cross-border movement of people and goods. Air passengers are a high-volume pathway for a range of biosecurity risk materials, against which various interventions may be used (e.g., manual searches, detector dogs, x-rays, etc.). Using a large interception database for [...]
Gut microbiome composition and function – including transposase gene abundance - varies with age, but not senescence, in a wild vertebrate
Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Ornithology
Studies on wild animals, mostly undertaken using 16S metabarcoding, have yielded ambigous evidence regarding changes in the gut microbiome (GM) with age and senescence. Furthermore, variation in GM function has rarely been studied in such wild populations, despite GM metabolic characteristics potentially being associated with host senescent declines. Here, we used seven years of longitudinal [...]
Advancing the spatiotemporal dimension of wildlife–pollution interactions
Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Toxicology, Zoology
Chemical pollution is a pervasive problem and is now considered the fastest-growing agent of global environmental change. Numerous pollutants are known to disrupt animal behaviour, alter ecological interactions, and shift evolutionary trajectories. Crucially, both chemical pollutants and individual organisms are non-randomly distributed throughout the environment. Despite this, the current [...]
Choosing friends in an uncertain world: information reduces relationship stability in a Bayesian learning model of cooperative partnership
Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Social animals often form differentiated social relationships with conspecifics. Developing closer partnerships with some than others can facilitate cooperative interactions in which individuals share resources or risk. When choosing a partner, individuals face a decision: a known partner might be sub-optimal if better options are available, but switching partners can be risky if others' [...]