Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Testing character-evolution models in phylogenetic paleobiology: a case study with Cambrian echinoderms
Published: 2020-08-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences
Macroevolutionary inference has historically been treated as a two-step process, involving the inference of a phylogenetic tree, and then inference of a macroevolutionary model using that tree. Newer models, such as the fossilized birth-death model, blend the two steps. These methods make more complete use of fossils than the previous generation of Bayesian phylogenetic models. They also involve [...]
First estimates of survival and densities of invasive alien Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) in Italy: a Bayesian robust design approach
Published: 2020-08-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
The Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) has become invasive in Central and Northern Italy, where it affects prey-predator dynamics between native species. Although many different studies explored survival rates and the density of cottontails in North America, no information is available for its invasive range. Between December 2003 and October 2005, a capture-recapture scheme for Eastern [...]
Do forest fuel reduction treatments confer resistance to beetle infestation and drought mortality?
Published: 2020-08-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences
Climate change is amplifying the frequency and severity of droughts and wildfires in many forests. In the western U.S., fuels reduction treatments, both mechanical and prescribed fire, are widely used to increase resilience to wildfire but their effect on resistance to drought and beetle mortality is not as well understood. We followed more than 10,000 mapped and tagged trees in a mixed-conifer [...]
Landscapes shaped from the top down: predicting cascading predator effects on spatial biogeochemistry
Published: 2020-07-31
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Spatial heterogeneity in ecological systems can result from animal-driven top-down processes, but despite some theoretical attention, the emergence of spatial heterogeneity from feedbacks caused by animals is not well understood empirically. Interactions between predators and prey influence animal movement and associated nutrient transport and release, generating spatial heterogeneity that [...]
Teaching Animal Behavior in the Midst of a Pandemic: A Primer
Published: 2020-07-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Face-to-face classes in animal behavior often stress experiential learning through laboratories that involve observation of live animals, as well as a lecture component that emphasizes formative assessment, discussion and critical thinking. As a result, behavior courses face unique challenges when moving to an online environment, as has been made necessary at many institutions due to the COVID-19 [...]
Evolution in the Courtroom: Using Phylogenetics to Investigate Legal Claims of HIV Transmission
Published: 2020-07-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
DNA sequences have become ubiquitous across the biological sciences and are even embedded in the public psyche, perhaps most famously in the context of forensic science. A human being’s DNA changes very little over his or her lifetime, and this inherent stability lends itself well to positively identifying individuals using DNA samples. However, not all genomes are so stable, even over short [...]
A methodological roadmap to quantify animal-vectored spatial ecosystem subsidies
Published: 2020-07-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Ecosystems are open systems connected through spatial flows of energy, matter, and nutrients. Predicting and managing ecosystem interdependence requires a rigorous quantitative understanding of the drivers and vectors that connect ecosystems across spatio-temporal scales. Animals act as such vectors when they transport nutrients across landscapes in the form of excreta, egesta, and their own [...]
Climate change prompts monitoring and systematic utilization of honey bee diversity in Turkey
Published: 2020-07-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Apiculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
Quantitative studies concerning the impact of climate change on pollinators are generally lacking. Relationship between honey bee diversity, present local adaptations and adaptive capacity of subspecies and ecotypes in the face of climate change is an urgent but rather poorly studied topic worldwide. Actually, such an effort lies at the crossroads of various fields of inquiry. Those include [...]
Directed evolution of microbial communities
Published: 2020-07-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Directed evolution is a form of artificial selection that has been used for decades to find biomolecules and organisms with new or enhanced functional traits. Directed evolution can be conceptualized as a guided exploration of the genotype-phenotype map, where genetic variants with desirable phenotypes are first selected and then mutagenized to search the genotype space for an even better mutant. [...]
Segmentation, body symmetry and the organization of the central nervous system in echinoderms
Published: 2020-07-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The organization of the echinoderm central nervous system (CNS) is striking because it varies widely from that of other bilaterians; however, the basis for this is unknown. In the present paper, I identify echinoderms as compound and I show that this is the basis for their radial symmetry and the organization of their CNS. The asteroids, as I show, comprise of bilaterally symmetrical zooids [...]
Indigenous Conservation Practices Are Not a Monolith: Western cultural biases and a lack of engagement with Indigenous experts undermine studies of land stewardship
Published: 2020-07-24
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Commentary On: Oswald, W. W., Foster, D. R., Shuman, B. N., Chilton, E. S., Doucette, D. L., Duranleau, D. L. Conservation implications of limited Native American impacts in pre-contact New England. Nature Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0466-0
Historical comparisons show evolutionary changes in drought responses in European plant species after two decades of climate change
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Plant populations must continuously adapt to ongoing global climate change, including warmer temperatures and more extreme weather events. One way to detect such evolutionary changes within plant populations is through historical comparisons where plants grown from seeds collected in the past (“ancestors”) are compared to freshly collected seeds from the same populations (“descendants”) in common [...]
Drone data reveal heterogeneity in tundra greenness and phenology not captured by satellites
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Data across scales are required to monitor ecosystem responses to rapid warming in the Arctic and to interpret tundra greening trends. Here, we tested the correspondence among satellite- and drone-derived seasonal change in tundra greenness to identify optimal spatial scales for vegetation monitoring on Qikiqtaruk - Herschel Island in the Yukon Territory, Canada. We combined time-series of the [...]
The Diverse Applications of Tree Set Visualization and Exploration
Published: 2020-07-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
All phylogenetic studies are built around sets of trees. Tree sets carry different kinds of information depending on the data and approaches used to generate them, but ultimately the variation they contain and their structure is what drives new phylogenetic insights. In order to better understand the variation in and structure of phylogenetic tree sets, we need tools that are generic, flexible, [...]
Misunderstanding mismatch
Published: 2020-07-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
This is a reponse to Kharouba and Wolkovichs (2020) review of consumer-resource phenological synchrony. They provide a valuable review and cogent advocacy for future work. However, they misunderstand and misinterpret examples from plant-insect interactions. Their detailed case study involves phenological synchrony/ asynchrony between spring hatching of Winter Moth eggs and budburst of their oak [...]