Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Revisiting Wolbachia detections: old and new issues in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and other insects
Published: 2024-05-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Wolbachia continue to be reported in species previously thought to lack them, particularly Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. The presence of Wolbachia in this arbovirus vector is considered important because releases of mosquitoes with transinfected Wolbachia are being used around the world to suppress pathogen transmission and these efforts depend on a lack of Wolbachia in natural populations of this [...]
A dire need for better standards of data quality, transparency, and reproducibility in IUCN RedList assessments
Published: 2024-05-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The IUCN RedList is the most extensive source of information on the global extinction risk including over 157000 species. The sheer scale of this initiative presents challenges in data standards and reporting, especially given that legacy issues may reduce accuracy. Here, we assess the bibliographic underpinnings of RedList assessments for five taxa with fairly complete assessments (four [...]
University herbaria are uniquely important
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
University herbaria play critical roles in biodiversity research and training and provide an interdisciplinary academic environment that fosters innovative uses of natural history collections. Universities have a responsibility to steward these important collections in perpetuity, in alignment with their academic missions and for the good of science and society.
MacArthur’s consumer-resource model: a Rosetta Stone for competitive interactions
Published: 2024-04-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Recent developments in competition theory, namely, Modern Coexistence Theory (MCT), have aided empiricists in formulating tests of species persistence, coexistence, and evolution from simple to complex community settings. However, the parameters used to predict competitive outcomes, such as interaction coefficients, invasion growth rates, or stabilizing differences, remain biologically opaque, [...]
Addictive manipulation: a perspective on the role of reproductive parasitism in the evolution of bacteria-eukaryote symbioses
Published: 2024-04-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Other Microbiology
Wolbachia bacteria encompass noteworthy reproductive manipulators of their arthropod hosts. which influence host reproduction to favour their own transmission, also exploiting toxin-antitoxin systems. Recently, multiple other bacterial symbionts of arthropods have been shown to display comparable manipulative capabilities. Here we wonder whether such phenomena are truly restricted to arthropod [...]
Historic residential segregation impacts biodiversity data availability disparately across the tree of life
Published: 2024-04-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Race and Ethnicity, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Urbanization alters species ranges and nature’s contributions to people, motivating urban conservation. Residential segregation policies have left an indelible impact on urban environments, greenspaces, and wildlife communities, creating socioeconomic heterogeneity and altering biota. However, the extent to which data sufficiently capture urban biodiversity patterns remains unclear, especially [...]
Leveraging AI to improve evidence synthesis in conservation
Published: 2024-04-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Systematic evidence syntheses (systematic reviews and maps) summarize knowledge and are used to support decisions and policies in a variety of applied fields, from medicine and public health to biodiversity conservation. However, conducting these exercises in conservation is often expensive and slow, which can impede their use and hamper progress in addressing the biodiversity crisis. With the [...]
Environmental connectivity influences the origination of adaptive processes
Published: 2024-04-18
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Spatial structure is hypothesized to be an important factor in the origin of life, wherein encapsulated chemical reaction networks came together to form systems capable adaptive complexification via Darwinian evolution. In this work, we use a computational model to investigate how different patterns of environmental connectivity influence the emergence of adaptive processes in simulated systems [...]
How can biodiversity strategy and action plans incorporate genetic diversity concerns, plans, policies, capacity, and commitments?
Published: 2024-04-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Globally, national, subnational, and supranational entities are creating Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans, to develop concrete commitments and actions to curb biodiversity loss, meet international obligations and achieve a society in harmony with nature. In light of policy makers' increasing recognition of genetic diversity in helping species and ecosystems adapt and be resilient during [...]
Effectiveness of toxic baiting for the control of canines and felines
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Toxic baiting is used for the lethal control of mammalian predators. It is easily applied over large areas and can be highly effective, but also receives significant criticism. We conducted a meta-analysis of the efficacy of lethal baiting for the feral cat, red fox and dingo; our outcome of interest was predator survival. Our dataset contained 125 effects from 35 studies, comprising 1560 [...]
Why there are so many definitions of fitness in models
Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Biology, Computational Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Population Biology
“Fitness” quantifies the ability to survive and reproduce, but is operationalized in many different ways. Generally, short-term fitness (e.g., expected number of surviving offspring) is assigned to genotypes or phenotypes, and used to non-trivially derive longer-term operationalizations of fitness (e.g. fixation probability or sojourn time), providing insight as to which organismal [...]
Searching for and Monitoring the Nests of Imperiled Grassland Birds: Recommendations from the Grand River Grasslands of Iowa
Published: 2024-04-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Grassland birds are the most imperiled avian group in North America, with greater than 50% abundance declines since 1970. Studies examining factors that impact habitat preferences, habitat selection, and reproductive success are critical to developing effective conservation and management plans for these species. These studies often involve searching for and monitoring nests in grasslands, which [...]
Interplay of abiotic, biotic, and individual factors in shaping individual growth and demography in a high-elevation common toad population
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology
1. Vital rates of individuals in natural populations, such as survival and breeding probabilities, can be affected by abiotic (i.e. environmental conditions), biotic (e.g. population density), and individual factors (i.e. individual traits). Many studies often consider the direct effects of one or two of these sources of vital-rate variations, but taking them all into account might reveal [...]
Acceleration and demographic rates behind bird decline in North America
Published: 2024-04-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Acceleration of human activities over the past century might have caused a corresponding acceleration in the decline of abundance of species, but this has not been empirically assessed. Further, the temporal dynamics of abundance arises from a complex interaction between recruitment and loss of individuals, which remains unexplored across large spatial scales. We address these gaps by examining [...]
No place for phylogeny in structuring a sandy coastal plain community
Published: 2024-04-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Although inference of assembly processes from phylogenetic patterns has become ubiquitous in community ecology, surprisingly few studies simultaneously test assumptions of such an approach and integrate over spatial scales and plant life stages. Here we investigate the roles of phylogeny, functional traits, and abiotic conditions in the spatial structuring of a sandy coastal plain community using [...]