Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Mexican agricultural frontier communities differ in forest dynamics with consequences for conservation and restoration
Published: 2021-10-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Forest regrowth is key to achieve restoration commitments, but a general lack of understanding when it occurs and how long secondary forests persist, hampers effective upscaling. We quantified spatiotemporal forest dynamics in a recently colonized agricultural frontier in southern Mexico, and tested how temporal variation in climate, and cross-community variation in land ownership, land quality [...]
Mobbing in animals: a thorough review and proposed future directions
Published: 2021-10-26
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Communication, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mobbing is an important anti-predator behavior where prey harass and attack a predator to lower the immediate and long-term risk posed by predators, warn others, and communicate about the predator’s threat. While this behavior has been of interest to humans since antiquity, and aspects of it have been well researched for the past 50 years, we still know little about its ecology and the [...]
Sex-dependent effects of parental age on offspring fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird
Published: 2021-10-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Parental age can have considerable effects on offspring phenotypes and health. However, intergenerational effects may also have longer-term effects on offspring fitness. Few studies have investigated parental age effects on offspring fitness in natural populations while also testing for sex- and environment-specific effects. Further, longitudinal parental age effects may be masked by [...]
Sperm-dependent asexual species matter in ecology and evolution
Published: 2021-10-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
In a world of metazoans, where sexual reproduction vastly predominates, asexual organisms are nonetheless very important. The aim of this review is to show that asexuals can have general effects on other species, ecosystems and biological networks via mechanisms that deserve more attention. These include 1) impact on the genepool of coexisting sexual species by either restricting their population [...]
Arboreal locomotion and trophic security at the dawn of Euprimate vision
Published: 2021-10-23
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Zoology
Primate vision is thought to have evolved in connection with life in the trees. However, several inter-related origins theories—those addressing possible co-evolution with size, predation, diet, daylight, locomotion, and groups—also provide reasonable explanations of their distinct cranial-visual morphology. We hypothesized that demand for high-speed landings in arboreal environments facilitated [...]
Genetic variation in non-structural carbohydrates in Plantago lanceolata is related to mowing intensity but not to regrowth ability
Published: 2021-10-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs) are important storage reserves of plants, and they may play a key role in the plants’ ability to recover from disturbance events such as drought, fire, or biomass removal. In managed grasslands, plants regularly experience aboveground biomass removal by grazing or mowing. If NSCs influence plant tolerances to these damages, then land-use intensification could [...]
Ecology and conservation of a living fossil: Australias Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis)
Published: 2021-10-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Horticulture, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The iconic Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) is a critically endangered Australian conifer and one of the world’s rarest trees with only 46 mature individuals remaining in the wild. The species is regarded as a ‘living fossil’ and was discovered on the brink of extinction following a natural historical decline. While its discovery has enabled crucial intervention for its long-term conservation, it [...]
Causes and consequences of variation in early-life telomere length in a bird metapopulation
Published: 2021-10-16
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physiology
1. Environmental conditions during early-life development can have lasting effects on individual quality and fitness. Telomere length (TL) may correlate with early-life conditions and may be an important mediator or biomarker of individual quality or pace-of-life, as periods of increased energy demands can increase telomere attrition due to oxidative stress. Thus, knowledge of the mechanisms that [...]
Transcription factors evolve faster than their structural gene targets in the flavonoid pigment pathway
Published: 2021-10-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Evolutionary transitions in flower color often trace back to changes in the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway and its regulators. In angiosperms, this pathway produces a range of red, purple, and blue anthocyanin pigments. Transcription factor (TF) complexes involving members of the MYB, bHLH, and WD40 protein families control the expression of pathway enzymes. Here, we investigate flavonoid pathway [...]
Ocean acidification and bivalve byssus: explaining variable responses using meta-analysis
Published: 2021-10-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Numerous studies have documented weakened byssal attachment strength under ocean acidification (OA); however, a comparable number report no effect, even within the same species. We used meta-analysis to explore factors that could potentially explain observed effect size variation in byssal attachment strength following OA exposure. A systematic literature search uncovered 19 studies [...]
Selective Breeding to Support the Long-Term Persistence of Coral Reefs
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The decline of coral reefs has prompted an emergent field of research on the potential for various biological interventions focused on increasing stress tolerance in corals. Among these is selective breeding, the selection and reproductive crossing of parental stock based on a trait of interest with the goal of enhancing the frequency or intensity of the trait in subsequent generations. Selective [...]
The effect of dominance rank on female reproductive success in social mammals
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Life in social groups, while potentially providing social benefits, inevitably leads to conflict among group members. In many social mammals, such conflicts lead to the formation of dominance hierarchies, where high-ranking individuals consistently outcompete other group members. Given that competition is a fundamental tenet of the theory of natural selection, it is generally assumed that [...]
The rate of environmental change as an important driver across scales in ecology
Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Global change has been predominantly studied from the prism of ‘how much’ rather than ‘how fast’ change occurs. The paradigm underlying the former assumes that a smooth change in an environmental driver can force a regime shift between alternative states (Bifurcation-tipping). This presupposes that environmental conditions change at a rate which allows the ecological entity to track them and thus [...]
Orchid fruiting success is unrelated to surrounding floral resources in South Australian plant communities
Published: 2021-10-11
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To maintain recruitment in orchid populations in an ecosystem setting, we must understand how surrounding floral resources affect fruiting success. We studied fruiting success in two endemic Australian species, Diruis pardina and Glossodia major, in relation to surrounding floral resources. Diuris pardina has a visually deceptive pollination strategy via mimicry of pea flowers, attracting [...]
The age of flowering plants is unknown
Published: 2021-10-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The origin of flowering plants (angiosperms) was one of the most transformative events in the history of our planet. Despite considerable interest from multiple research fields, numerous questions remain, including the age of the group as a whole. Recent studies have reported a perplexing range of estimates for the crown-group age of angiosperms, from ca. 140 Ma (Early Cretaceous) to 270 Ma [...]