Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Genome sequence for the blue-flowered Andean shrub Iochroma cyaneum reveals extensive discordance across the berry clade of Solanaceae
Published: 2021-12-15
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences
The tomato family, Solanaceae, is a model clade for a wide range of applied and basic research questions. Currently, reference-quality genomes are available for over 30 species from seven genera, and these include numerous crops as well as wild species (e.g., Jaltomata sinuosa and Nicotiana attenuata). Here we present the genome of the showy-flowered Andean shrub Iochroma cyaneum, a woody lineage [...]
Identifying cryptic fern gametophytes using DNA barcoding: A review
Published: 2021-12-14
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Ferns and lycophytes are unique among land plants for having sporophyte (diploid) and gametophyte (haploid) generations that can grow independently of each other. While most studies of fern ecology focus on the more obvious sporophytic stage, the gametophyte is critically important, as it is the sexual phase of the life cycle. Yet, fern gametophytes have long been neglected in field studies due [...]
Multiple anthropogenic stressors have inconsistent cumulative effects across a large spatial gradient
Published: 2021-12-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Biodiversity is declining, typically because of multiple anthropogenic stressors. Cumulative effects of multiple stressors are classified as additive, when cumulative effects are as expected from the stressor’s singular effects, synergistic when greater than additive or antagonistic when less than additive. Less attention has been given to the consistency of cumulative effects. We analysed stream [...]
Selfish, promiscuous, and sometimes useful: how mobile genetic elements drive horizontal gene transfer in microbial populations
Published: 2021-12-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Microbiology
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) drives microbial adaptation but is often under the control of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) whose interests are not necessarily aligned with those of their hosts. In general, transfer is costly to the donor cell while potentially beneficial to the recipients. The diversity and plasticity of cell-MGEs interactions, and those among MGEs, results in complex [...]
Microbiotic particles in water and soil, water-soil microbiota coalescences, and antimicrobial resistance
Published: 2021-11-30
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology
Bacterial organisms like surfaces. Water and soil contain a multiplicity of particulated material where bacterial populations and communities might attach. Microbiotic particles refers to any type of small particles (less than 2 mm) where bacteria (and other microbes) might attach, resulting in medium- long-term colonization. In this work, the interactions of bacterial organisms with microbiotic [...]
Idea Paper: improving forecasts of community composition with lightweight biodiversity monitoring across ecological and anthropogenic disturbance gradients
Published: 2021-11-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Accurate and up-to-date biodiversity forecasts enable robust planning for environmental management and conservation of landscapes under a wide range of uses. Future predictions of the species composition of ecological communities complement more frequently reported species richness estimates to better characterize the different dimensions of biodiversity. The models that make community [...]
A review of chemical defense in harlequin toads (Bufonidae; Atelopus)
Published: 2021-11-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health
Toads of the genus Atelopus are chemically defended by a unique combination of endogenously synthesized cardiotoxins (bufadienolides) and neurotoxins which may be sequestered (guanidinium alkaloids). Investigation into Atelopus small-molecule chemical defenses has been primarily concerned with identifying and characterizing various forms of these toxins while largely overlooking their ecological [...]
Temporal patterns in prey size between sexes in a raptor with extreme size dimorphism: testing the intersexual competition hypothesis using web-sourced photographs
Published: 2021-11-27
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology
In most vertebrates, males are larger than females. For raptors, sexual size dimorphism is reversed, with females being larger. Reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) in raptors is strongly linked to diet, with species feeding on the most agile prey, for example bird-eating raptors, showing the greatest size differences between the sexes. Hypotheses for reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) include the [...]
ROBITT: a tool for assessing the risk-of-bias in studies of temporal trends in ecology
Published: 2021-11-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
1. Aggregated species occurrence and abundance data from disparate sources are increasingly accessible to ecologists for the analysis of temporal trends in biodiversity. However, sampling biases relevant to any given research question are often poorly explored and infrequently reported; this has the potential to undermine statistical inference. In other disciplines, but particularly medicine, [...]
Impact of heat stress on the fitness outcomes of symbiotic infection in aphids: a meta-analysis
Published: 2021-11-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Microbiology
Beneficial microorganisms shape the evolutionary trajectories of their hosts, facilitating or constraining the colonization of new ecological niches. One convincing example entails the responses of insect-microbe associations to rising temperatures. Indeed, the insect resilience to stressful high temperatures depends on the genetic identity of the obligate symbiont and the presence of heat [...]
Take only pictures, leave only… Cameras influence marmot vigilance but not perceptions of risk
Published: 2021-11-20
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Ecotourism promotes conservation efforts while also allowing for low impact observation of wildlife. Many ecotourists photograph wildlife and photography plays an important role in focusing the public’s attention on nature. Although photography is commonly believed to be a low impact activity, how the visual stimulus of a camera influences wildlife remains unknown. Since animals are known to fear [...]
Early diversifications of angiosperms and their insect pollinators: Were they unlinked?
Published: 2021-11-18
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
The present-day ubiquity of angiosperm-insect pollination has led to the hypothesis that these two groups coevolved early in their evolutionary history. However, recent fossil discoveries and fossil-calibrated molecular dating analyses challenge the notion that early diversifications of angiosperms and insects were inextricably linked. In this article we examine (i) the discrepancies between [...]
Quantifying research interests in 7,521 mammalian species with h-index: a case study
Published: 2021-11-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Taxonomic bias is a known issue within the field of biology, causing scientific knowledge to be unevenly distributed across species. However, a systematic quantification of the research interest that the scientific community has allocated to individual species remains a big data problem. Scalable approaches are needed to integrate biodiversity datasets and bibliometric methods across large [...]
The better, the choosier: a meta-analysis on inter-individual variation of male mate choice
Published: 2021-11-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Male mate choice occurs in several animal species, but we know little about the factors that influence the expression of this behaviour. Males vary in their capacity to acquire mates (i.e. male quality), which could be crucial to male mate choice expression but it is often overlooked. Using a meta-analytical approach, we explore inter-individual variation in the expression of male mate choice by [...]
Amazon fire regimes under climate change scenarios
Published: 2021-11-16
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Systems Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Fire is one of the most important disturbances of the earth-system, shaping the biodiversity of ecosystems and particularly forests. Climatic change and other anthropogenic drivers such as deforestation and land use change could produce abrupt changes in fire regimes, potentially triggering transition from forests to savannah or grasslands ecosystems with large accompanying biodiversity losses. [...]