Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Evolution, Origins and Diversification of Parasitic Cnidarians
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Parasitism has evolved in cnidarians on multiple occasions but only one clade – the Myxozoa – has undergone substantial radiation. We briefly review minor parasitic clades that exploit pelagic hosts and then focus on the comparative biology and evolution of the highly speciose Myxozoa and its monotypic sister taxon, Polypodium hydriforme, which collectively form the Endocnidozoa. Cnidarian [...]
Predation as a driver of behavioural variation and trait integration: effects on personality, plasticity, and predictability
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Predation is increasingly viewed as an important driver in maintaining ecological and phenotypic diversity. In contrast to classic evolutionary theory which predicts that predation will shift trait means and erode variance within prey species, several studies indicate higher behavioural trait variance and integration in high predation populations. These results come predominately from [...]
Connected data landscape of long-term ecological studies: the SPI-Birds data hub
Published: 2020-08-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The integration and synthesis of the data in different areas of science is drastically slowed and hindered by a lack of standards and networking programmes. Long-term studies of individually marked animals are not an exception. These studies are especially important as instrumental for understanding evolutionary and ecological processes in the wild. Further, their number and global distribution [...]
Coexistence of large mammals and humans is possible in Europe’s anthropogenic landscapes
Published: 2020-08-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
A critical question in the conservation of both large carnivores and wild ungulates is where they are able to live. In Europe, large mammals have persisted, and recently expanded, alongside humans for millennia, but surprisingly little quantitative data is available about large scale effects of human disturbance on their broad scale distribution. In this study, we quantify the relative importance [...]
Integrating dynamic plant growth models and microclimates for species distribution modelling
Published: 2020-08-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Climate is a major factor determining the distribution of plant species. Correlative models are frequently used to model the relationships between species distributions and climatic drivers but, increasingly, their use for prediction in novel scenarios such as climate change is being questioned. Mechanistic models, where processes limiting plant distribution are explicitly included, are regarded [...]
Echolocation and Navigational Distortion Hypothesis of the Short Finned Pilot Whale Beaching in Southern Coast of Tamil Nadu
Published: 2020-08-12
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Cetacean strandings have been a common occurrence in the past and has been recorded in various places. There have been attempts to explain the phenomenon of mass beaching with various theories. Here in this article we propose a hypothesis on the recent mass stranding of Short-finned pilot whales Globicephala macrorhynchus in the southern coast of Tamil Nadu, India. We propose that navigation [...]
The effects of population synchrony, life history, and access constraints on benefits from fishing portfolios
Published: 2020-08-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Population Biology
Natural resources often exhibit large interannual fluctuations in productivity driven by shifting environmental conditions, and this translates to high variability in the revenue resource users can earn. However, users can dampen this variability by harvesting a portfolio of resources. In the context of fisheries, this means targeting multiple populations, though the ability to actually build [...]
Testing character-evolution models in phylogenetic paleobiology: a case study with Cambrian echinoderms
Published: 2020-08-06
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: 2020-08-06
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: 2020-08-04
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: 2020-08-01
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: 2020-08-01
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: 2020-07-29
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 [...]