Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The Pangolin Universal Notching System (PUNS): A Foundational Scale Marking Methodology for Pangolins
Published: 2023-11-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology
Abstract Due to significant anthropogenic pressures, all eight established species of pangolin are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the highest level of international protection possible. Pangolin population status assessments are incomplete, particularly in areas with high exploitation and limited field assets. [...]
Forecasting insect dynamics in a changing world
Published: 2023-11-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology
Predicting how insects will respond to stressors through time is difficult because of the diversity of insects, environments, and approaches used to monitor and model. Forecasting models take correlative/statistical, mechanistic models, and integrated forms; in some cases, temporal processes can be inferred from spatial models. Because of heterogeneity associated with broad community [...]
Polyploid plants take cytonuclear perturbations in stride
Published: 2023-11-13
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Plant Biology
Hybridization in plants is often accompanied by nuclear genome doubling (allopolyploidy), which has been hypothesized to perturb interactions between nuclear and cytoplasmic (mitochondrial and plastid) genomes by creating imbalances in the relative copy number of these genomes and producing genetic incompatibilities between maternally derived cytoplasmic genomes and the half of the allopolyploid [...]
Refining the trophic diversity, ecological network structure, and bottom-up importance of prey groups for temperate reef fishes
Published: 2023-11-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Marine fish communities are highly diverse, including all trophic levels of consumers and contributing to many ecosystem processes. Understanding the specific functional roles of many fish species and the importance of different prey groups for sustaining fish communities has, however, been limited by the historical classification of fishes into a few coarse trophic guilds. Using detailed diet [...]
Signatures of global processes shaping the structure of microbial co-occurrence networks
Published: 2023-11-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences
Co-occurrence networks offer insights into the complexity of microbial interactions, particularly in highly diverse environments where direct observation is challenging. However, identifying the scale at which local and non-local processes structure co-occurrence networks remains challenging because it requires simultaneously analyzing network structure within and between local networks. In this [...]
The behavioural costs of overcrowding for gregarious cave-dwelling bats
Published: 2023-11-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
1. Bats are known for their gregarious social behaviour, often congregating in caves and underground habitats, where they play a pivotal role in providing various ecosystem services. Studying bat behaviour remains an underexplored aspect of bat ecology and conservation despite its ecological importance. 2. We explore the costs and impacts of overcrowding on bat social behaviour. This study [...]
An illusion of a macroecological law, abundance-occupancy relationships
Published: 2023-11-01
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In macroecology, a classic empirical observation has been positive relationships between local abundance and species' range, known as the abundance-occupancy relationships (AORs). The existence of this empirical relationship has informed both theory development and applied questions. Notably, the spatial neutral model of biodiversity predicts AORs. Yet, based on the largest known meta-analysis of [...]
Patterns and drivers of population trends on individual Breeding Bird Survey routes using spatially explicit models and route-level covariates
Published: 2023-10-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biostatistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Population Biology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models
Spatial patterns in population trends, particularly those at fine geographic scales, can help better understand the factors driving population change in North American birds. The standard trend models for the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) were designed to estimate changes in relative abundance through time (trend) within broad geographic strata, such as countries, Bird Conservation [...]
Uneven genetic data limits biodiversity assessments in protected areas globally
Published: 2023-10-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Policy, Genetics, Life Sciences
Increasing the extent of protected areas (PA) through 30x30 and other area-based conservation initiatives can help to achieve global biodiversity conservation goals across all biodiversity levels. However, intraspecific genetic variation, the foundational level of biodiversity, is rarely explicitly considered in PA design or quality performance assessments. Repurposing existing genetic data could [...]
Integration of multimodal cues does not alter mean but reduces among-study variance in avian responses to predators: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Published: 2023-10-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Despite a wealth of studies documenting prey responses to perceived predation risk, researchers have only recently begun to consider how prey integrate information from multiple cues in their assessment of risk. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that experimentally manipulated perceived predation risk in birds and evaluate support for three alternative models of cue [...]
When the microbiome shapes the host: immune evolution implications for infectious disease
Published: 2023-10-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Molecular Genetics, Pathogenic Microbiology
The microbiome includes both “mutualist” and “pathogen” microbes, regulated by the same innate immune architecture. A major question has therefore been: how do hosts prevent pathogenic infections while maintaining beneficial microbes? One idea suggests hosts can selectively activate innate immunity upon pathogenic infection, but not mutualist colonisation. Another idea posits that hosts can [...]
Remote extracellular attacks on bacteriophage
Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Bacteriophages and their hosts co-evolve while exploiting and defending against the other, respectively. Known anti-phage defences prevent attachment to the cell or target phage nucleic acids within the cell; variation in such defences shapes phage host range. While investigating the host range of the virulent myxophage Mx1 among natural isolates of the social bacterium Myxococcus xanthus, we [...]
Inferring the evolutionary history of the Sino-Himalayan biodiversity hotspot using Bayesian phylodynamics
Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution
The current status of the Sino-Himalayan region as a biodiversity hotspot, particularly for flora, has often been linked to the uplift of the Sino-Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan and Hengduan Mountains. However, the relationship between the topological development of the region and the onset of diversification is yet to be confirmed. Here, we apply Bayesian phylodynamic methods to a large phylogeny [...]
Crop phenology reshapes the food-safety landscape for roe deer in an agroecosystem
Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Understanding the behavioural adjustments of wildlife in anthropized landscapes is key for promoting sustainable human-wildlife coexistence. Little is known, however, about how synanthropic species navigate spatio-temporal variation in the availability of food and cover that are shaped by human practices such as agriculture. Animal habitat use is predominantly driven by spatial and temporal [...]
Amount of carbon fixed, transit time and fate of harvested wood products define the climate change mitigation potential of boreal forest management - A model analysis
Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Boreal forests are often managed to maximize wood production, but other goals, among which climate change mitigation, are increasingly important. Examining synergies and trade-offs between forest production and its potential for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation in forest stands requires explicitly accounting for how long forest ecosystems and wood products retain carbon from [...]