Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Collating existing evidence on cumulative impacts of invasive plant species in riparian ecosystems of British Columbia, Canada: a systematic map protocol
Published: 2023-07-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Background Globally, the structure and functioning of foreshore and riparian ecosystems are being dramatically impacted by non-native invasive plant species. Invasive species can outcompete and replace native species, modify geochemical and hydraulic cycles, alter trophic processes, and change the composition and structure of communities above and below ground. However, these impacts are often [...]
The evolutionary dynamics of plastic foraging and its ecological consequences: a resource-consumer model
Published: 2023-07-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Phenotypic plasticity has important ecological and evolutionary consequences. In particular, behavioural phenotypic plasticity such as plastic foraging (PF) by consumers, may enhance community stability. Yet little is known about the ecological conditions that favor the evolution of PF, and how the evolutionary dynamics of PF may modulate its effects on community stability. In order to address [...]
Application of crime theory in urban ecology, evolution and planning: factors influencing the disappearance of field equipment
Published: 2023-07-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
1. Research in urban ecology and evolution relies on the use of deployable scientific equipment. If left unattended in the field, it may be prone to vandalism and theft, especially in the urban space. We empirically applied crime theory, specifically the Routine Activity Theory (RAT), to predict disappearance rates of scientific equipment in an on-going urban ecology research project. 2. [...]
Shifts in internal stem damage along a tropical precipitation gradient and implications for forest biomass estimation
Published: 2023-07-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Woody biomass is a large carbon store in terrestrial ecosystems. In calculating biomass, tree stems are assumed to be solid structures. However, decomposer agents such as microbes and insects target stem heartwood, causing internal wood decay which is poorly quantified. We investigated internal stem damage across five sites in tropical Australia along a precipitation gradient. We estimated the [...]
Habitat suitability maps for Australian flora and fauna under CMIP6 climate scenarios
Published: 2023-07-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Background: Spatial information about the location and suitability of areas for native plant and animal species under different climate futures is an important input to land use and conservation planning and management. Australia, renowned for its abundant species diversity and endemism, often relies on modelled data to assess species distributions due to the country's vast size and the [...]
Computationally reproducing results from meta-analyses in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology using shared code and data
Published: 2023-07-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Many journals in ecology and evolutionary biology encourage or require authors to make their data and code available alongside articles. In this study we investigated how often this data and code could be used together, when both were available, to computationally reproduce results published in articles. We surveyed the data and code sharing practices of 177 meta-analyses published in ecology and [...]
Biogeographical distributions of trickster animals
Published: 2023-07-03
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Human language encompasses almost endless potential for meaning and folklore can theoretically incorporate themes beyond time and space. However, actual distributions of the themes are not always universal and their constraints remain unclear. Here, we specifically focused on zoological folklore and aimed to reveal what restricts the distribution of trickster animals in folklore. We applied the [...]
Lipid Metabolism in Parasitoids and Parasitized Hosts
Published: 2023-06-30
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Physiology
Parasitoids have an exceptional lifestyle where juvenile development is spent on or in a single host insect, but the adults are free-living. Unlike parasites, parasitoids always kill their host. How parasitoids use such a limiting resource, particularly lipids, is important for their chances to survive and reproduce. In part 1, we describe the parasitoid lifestyle, including typical developmental [...]
A call to expand global change research in LTER coastal wetlands
Published: 2023-06-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Global change stressors are altering the structure of ecological communities with significant implications for the functions and services that ecosystems provide. Coastal zones are particularly susceptible to such stressors, yet our collective understanding of the long-term effects of global change on these systems and, in particular, the consumer species found within them, is limited. The US [...]
Too simple, too complex, or just right? Advantages, challenges and resolutions for indicators of genetic diversity
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Policy, Genetics, Life Sciences
Measuring genetic diversity of wild species using DNA-based data remains resource intensive and time-consuming for nearly all species. Yet, genetic assessments are needed for global conservation commitments including the Convention on Biological Diversity and for governments and managers to evaluate conservation progress and to prioritize species and populations to preserve and recover genetic [...]
Designing a collective prototype of future (sub)tropical science
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Higher Education
Heterogeneous dispersal networks to improve biodiversity science
Published: 2023-06-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Dispersal plays a key role in shaping spatial patterns of biodiversity, yet its spatial heterogeneity is often overlooked in biodiversity analyses and management strategies. Properly parametrized heterogeneous dispersal networks capture the complex interplay between landscape structure and species-specific dispersal capacities. This heterogeneity, however, is recurrently neglected when studying [...]
Griffon Vultures restrict movements around roosts and supplementary feeding stations, even when carrion is available on the field: a call for wind energy zonation to avoid ecological traps on Mediterranean islands
Published: 2023-06-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Engineering
Wind energy is developing on Mediterranean islands, where endangered populations of Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) occur. As griffons are subjected to collisions with wind turbines while foraging, it is necessary to understand which factors affect their movements, to minimize the potential impact of wind farms. We assessed habitat use by 37 griffons (n. GPS locations = 130,218) and its overlap [...]
Links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data
Published: 2023-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Insects play important roles in food chains, but quantifying how insect abundance affects population dynamics in natural communities is challenging. National scale monitoring data provides opportunities to identify trophic relationships at broad spatial and temporal scales but requires careful approaches to link data from different schemes. Here, using two monitoring datasets from Great Britain, [...]
Plio-Pleistocene African megaherbivore losses associated with community biomass restructuring
Published: 2023-06-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution
Fossil abundance data can reveal ecological dynamics underpinning taxonomic declines. Using fossil dental metrics, we reconstructed body mass and mass-abundance distributions in Late Miocene to recent African large mammal communities. Despite collection biases, fossil and extant mass-abundance distributions are highly similar, with unimodal distributions likely reflecting savanna environments. [...]