Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
A SPECIES DISTRIBUTION MODEL OF THE ANTARCTIC MINKE WHALE (BALAENOPTERA BONAERENSIS)
Published: 2022-01-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) is regarded a Southern Hemisphere endemic found throughout the Southern Hemisphere, generally south of 60°S in austral summer. Here they have been routinely observed in highest densities adjacent to and inside the sea ice edge, and where they feed predominantly on krill. Detecting abundance trends regarding this species by employing visual [...]
Flower strips increase the control of rosy apple aphids after parasitoid releases in an apple orchard
Published: 2022-01-15
Subjects: Agricultural Economics, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Horticulture, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Mass releases of two parasitoid species, Aphidius matricariae and Ephedrus cerasicola, may provide an alternative measure to pesticides to control the rosy apple aphid Dysaphis plantaginea in organic apple orchards. As a proof of concept study, we tested if the presence of flower strips between apple tree rows could improve the action of three early parasitoid releases—and of other naturally [...]
Plant community data from a statewide survey of paired serpentine and non-serpentine soils in California, USA
Published: 2022-01-14
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Soils derived from ultramafic parent materials (hereafter serpentine) provide habitat for unique plant communities containing species with adaptations to the low nutrient levels, high magnesium: calcium ratios, and high metal content (Ni, Zn) that characterize serpentine. Plants on serpentine have long been studied in evolution and ecology, and plants adapted to serpentine contribute [...]
Latitudinal but not elevational variation in blood glucose level is linked to life history across passerine birds
Published: 2022-01-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology, Zoology
Macrophysiological research is vital to our understanding of mechanisms underpinning global life history variation and adaptation under diverse environments. Birds represent an important model taxon in this regard, yet our knowledge is limited to only a few physiological traits, mostly studied in temperate and Neotropical species. Here, we examined latitudinal and elevational variation in an [...]
Guidelines for the prediction of species interactions through binary classification
Published: 2022-01-11
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
1. The prediction of species interactions is gaining momentum as a way to circumvent limitations in data volume. Yet, ecological networks are challenging to predict because they are typically small and sparse. Dealing with extreme class imbalance is a challenge for most binary classifiers, and there are currently no guidelines as to how predictive models can be trained for this specific [...]
Molecular Paleobiology of the Echinoderm Skeleton
Published: 2022-01-10
Subjects: Cell and Developmental Biology, Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Molecular paleobiology provides a promising avenue to merge data from deep time, molecular biology and genomics, gaining insights into the evolutionary process at multiple levels. The echinoderm skeleton is a model for molecular paleobioloogical studies. I begin with an overview of the skeletogenic process in echinoderms, as well as a discussion of what gene regulatory networks are, and why they [...]
Form, Function, Agency: Sources of Natural Purpose in Animal Evolution
Published: 2022-01-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The origination and evolution of multicellular form and function is generally thought to be based on gene-based variation, with natural selection changing the populational composition in the respective variants over time. The criterion for evolutionary success is differential fitness, the relative capacity to leave progeny in the next generation. Theoretical considerations show that this model [...]
Mussels repair shell damage despite limitations imposed by ocean acidification
Published: 2022-01-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Bivalves frequently withstand shell boring attempts by predatory gastropods that result in shell damage that must be quickly repaired to ensure survival. While the processes that underlie larval shell development have been extensively studied within the context of ocean acidification (OA), it remains unclear whether shell repair is impaired by elevated pCO2. To better understand the stereotypical [...]
Processes and predictions in ecological models: logic and causality
Published: 2022-01-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To make credible ecological predictions for terrestrial ecosystems in a changing environment and increase our understanding of ecological processes, we need plant ecological models that can be fitted to spatial and temporal ecological data. Such models need to be based on sufficient understanding of ecological processes to make credible predictions and account for the different sources of [...]
For the few, not the many: local economic conditions constrain the large-scale management of invasive mosquitoes
Published: 2022-01-07
Subjects: Economics, Entomology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Public Economics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Biology
Invasive mosquitoes are an emerging ecological and sanitary issue. Many factors have been suggested as drivers or barriers to their control, still no study quantified their influence over mosquito management by local authorities, nor their interplay with local economic conditions. We assessed how multiple environmental, sanitary, and socio-economic factors affected the engagement of [...]
Vulnerable, but still poorly known, marine ecosystems: how to make distribution models more relevant and impactful for conservation and management of VMEs?
Published: 2022-01-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Human activity puts our oceans under multiple stresses, whose impacts are already significantly affecting biodiversity and physicochemical properties. Consequently, there is an increased international focus on the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, including the protection of fragile benthic biodiversity hotspots in the deep sea, identified as vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs). [...]
Idea paper: Monitoring and databasing non-native species to manage establishment debt in aquatic ecosystems
Published: 2022-01-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In the era of globalization, biological invasions are one of the most serious social issues. Thus, managing its impact is an urgent task. It is essential to control non-native species before they become established. However, it is insufficient to address establishment debt, which occurs when a non-native species has been introduced into an area but has not yet been established in the wild. In [...]
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, [...]