Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Nest-boxes alter the reproductive ecology of urban cavity-nesters in a species-dependent way
Published: 2021-08-25
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Population Biology
To mitigate the shortage of natural breeding sites in cities, nest-boxes are provided for cavity-nesters. However, these are not the breeding sites these animals originally evolved in and optimised their breeding performance to. It thus remains inconclusive if nest-boxes can provide adequate substitutes, ensuring equivalent fitness returns for breeding animals. Additionally, the majority of [...]
Many parasitoids lack adult fat accumulation, despite fatty acid synthesis: A discussion of concepts and considerations for future research
Published: 2021-08-25
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Physiology
Fat reserves, specifically the accumulation of triacylglycerols, are a major energy source and play a key role for life histories. Fat accumulation is a conserved metabolic pattern across most insects, yet in most parasitoid species adults do not gain fat mass, even when nutrients are readily available and provided ad libitum. This extraordinary physiological phenotype has evolved repeatedly in [...]
Towards evolutionary predictions: current promises and challenges
Published: 2021-08-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Evolution has traditionally been a historical and descriptive science and predicting future evolutionary processes has long been considered impossible. However, evolutionary predictions are increasingly being developed and used in medicine, agriculture, biotechnology and conservation biology. Evolutionary predictions may be used for different purposes, such as to prepare for the future, to try [...]
WHY DO INSECTS EVOLVE IMMUNE PRIMING? A SEARCH FOR CROSSROADS
Published: 2021-08-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Entomology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Until recently, it was assumed that insects lack immune memory since they do not have vertebrate-like specialized memory cells. Therefore, their most well studied evolutionary response against pathogens was increased basal immunity. However, growing evidence suggests that many insects also exhibit a form of immune memory (immune priming), where prior exposure to a low dose of infection confers [...]
Ecosystem size and complexity are extrinsic drivers of food chain length in branching networks
Published: 2021-08-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Understanding the drivers of food chain length in natural communities has intrigued ecologists since the publication of ‘food cycles’ by Elton in the early 20th century. Proposed drivers of food chain length have included extrinsic controls such as productivity, disturbance regime, and ecosystem size, as well as intrinsic factors including food web motifs. However, current theories have largely [...]
Abundance- and biomass-based metrics of functional composition of macroinvertebrates as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in Afrotropical streams
Published: 2021-08-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
The composition of macroinvertebrate functional feeding groups (FFGs) has been used as surrogates of ecosystem attributes in aquatic ecosystems but studies that utilize such knowledge are still limited in the tropics. This study investigated the suitability of abundance- vs. biomass-based metrics of macroinvertebrate FFGs as surrogates of ecosystems attributes of the Sosiani-Kipkaren River in [...]
The structure of evolutionary theory: Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Neo-Lamarckism and biased historical narratives about the Modern Synthesis
Published: 2021-08-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The last decades have seen frequent calls for a more extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) that will supposedly overcome the limitations in the current evolutionary framework with its intellectual roots in the Modern Synthesis (MS). Some radical critics even want to entirely abandon the current evolutionary framework, claiming that the MS (often erroneously labelled “Neo-Darwinism”) is outdated, [...]
Men and wolves: are anthropogenic causes the main driver of wolf mortality in human-dominated landscapes in Italy?
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences
Over the last 40 years the gray wolf (Canis lupus) re-colonized its historical range in Italy increasing human-predator interactions. However, temporal and spatial trends in wolf mortality, including direct and indirect persecution, were never summarized. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on the situation of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions, believed to host a significant proportion [...]
Early-life conditions impact juvenile telomere length, but do not predict later life-history strategies or fitness in a wild vertebrate
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Environmental conditions experienced during early life may have long-lasting effects on later-life phenotypes and fitness. Individuals experiencing poor early-life conditions may suffer subsequent fitness constraints. Alternatively, individuals may use a strategic ‘Predictive Adaptive Response’ (PAR), whereby they respond – in terms of physiology or life-history strategy – to the conditions [...]
The evolutionary relevance of social learning and transmission of behaviors in non-social arthropods
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Research on social learning has centered around vertebrates, but evidence is accumulating that small-brained, non-social arthropods also learn from others. Social learning can lead to social inheritance when socially acquired behaviors are transmitted to subsequent generations. Here, we first highlight the complementarities between social and classical genetic inheritance, using oviposition site [...]
Simultaneous effect of habitat remnancy, exotic species and anthropogenic disturbance on orchid diversity and abundance
Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Orchids are potentially useful as ecological indicators because of their sensitivity to habitat fragmentation and anthropogenic disturbance. While many studies explore the effect of single factors on orchid diversity, few investigate how the extent, configuration and condition of surrounding habitat affect whole orchid communities. Here, we unravel the effect of biological invasions, [...]
Crumbling Island Keystones: Threat Diversity and Intensification on Islands Push Large Island Fruit Bats to the Brink
Published: 2021-07-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Large island fruit bats (LIFB), species of Pteropus, Acerodon, and related genera in the pteropodid subfamily Pteropodinae, are keystone species for island conservation in the Palaeotropics, playing critical roles as agents of dispersal and pollination of native island plant communities. This keystone role is crumbling because LIFB are collectively the most threatened group of bats in the world. [...]
Representation of global change drivers across biodiversity datasets
Published: 2021-07-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Global change has altered biodiversity and impacted ecosystem functions and services around the planet. Understanding the effects of anthropogenic drivers like human use and climate change on biodiversity change has become a key challenge for science and policy. However, our knowledge of biodiversity change is limited by the available data and their biases. Over land and sea, we test the [...]
Richard Lewontin (1929-2021): Evolutionary Biology’s Great Disrupter
Published: 2021-07-25
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
An appreciation of the career of the evolutionary biologist and activist Richard Lewontin (1929-2021)
Cryogenian glacial habitats as a plant terrestrialisation cradle – the origin of the anydrophytes and Zygnematophyceae split
Published: 2021-07-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
For tens of millions of years (Ma), the terrestrial habitats of Snowball Earth during the Cryogenian period (between 720 to 635 Ma before present – Neoproterozoic Era) were possibly dominated by global snow and ice cover up to the equatorial sublimative desert. The most recent time-calibrated phylogenies calibrated not only on plants but on a comprehensive set of eukaryotes indicate that within [...]