Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
How to build a biodiverse city: environmental determinants of bird diversity within and among 1,581 cities
Published: 2019-08-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Cities are novel environments compared with the evolutionary history of the species that reside within them. Collectively, cities and their fauna can be thought of as ecosystems, recognized as playing a critical role in supporting global biodiversity, but they are fundamentally a combination of old species surviving or thriving in a new environment, and the mechanisms and underlying processes [...]
Ecosystem services of a functionally diverse riparian zone in the Amazon–Cerrado agricultural frontier
Published: 2019-08-21
Subjects: Agronomy and Crop Sciences Life Sciences, Biochemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The ecological services provided by protected riparian zones in human-altered landscapes are widely acknowledged, yet little is known about them. In this study, we assess ecosystem properties that a protected riparian zone maintains in contrast to environmental changes in its surroundings caused by agro-industrial activities in the northwestern fringe of the Brazilian Cerrado on the [...]
A Review of Peer-Review for Pedobiologia – Journal of Soil Ecology
Published: 2019-08-19
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Peer-review is an integral part of the scientific process, but getting a sufficient number of busy scientists to provide constructive reviews on a manuscript can be a challenge. The majority of individuals that we polled have had experience in the last two years with having manuscripts rejected and then submitting them elsewhere and/or with receiving invitations to review the same manuscript for [...]
Social network node-based metrics can function as proxies for animal personality traits
Published: 2019-08-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Behavioural traits are considered animal personality traits when individuals differ consistently in trait expression across time and context. Previous research has primarily focused on the shy-bold continuum, with research on sociability as potential proxy for animal personality traits only recently being considered. Here, we test the hypothesis that three node-based metrics derived from social [...]
Optimising occupancy models and detection probability for conservation monitoring in a forest-dwelling small mammal
Published: 2019-08-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
The ability to determine the survey effort required to detect species presence is critical for the conservation of populations in order to monitor changes in distribution or abundance, a challenge for rare and elusive species. While designing an effective population survey may be of concern to scientists, it may also be a legal requirement for protected species. We analysed how spatial and [...]
Finding fungal ecological strategies: Is recycling an option?
Published: 2019-08-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
High-throughput sequencing (e.g., amplicon and shotgun) has provided new insight into the diversity and distribution of fungi around the globe, but developing a framework to understand this diversity has proved challenging. Here we review key ecological strategy theories developed for macro-organisms and discuss ways that they can be applied to fungi. We suggest that while certain elements may be [...]
Fungal functional ecology: Bringing a trait-based approach to plant-associated fungi
Published: 2019-08-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Fungi play many essential roles in ecosystems. They facilitate plant access to nutrients and water, serve as decay agents that cycle carbon and nutrients through the soil, water and atmosphere, and are major regulators of macro-organismal populations. Although technological advances are improving the detection and identification of fungi, there still exist key gaps in our ecological knowledge of [...]
The commonness of rarity: Global and future distribution of rarity across land plants
Published: 2019-08-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
A key feature of life’s diversity is that some species are common but many more are rare. Nonetheless, at global scales, we do not know what fraction of biodiversity consists of rare species. Here, we present the largest compilation of global plant species observation data in order to quantify the fraction of Earth’s extant land plant biodiversity that is common versus rare. Tests of different [...]
Yeast lines selected for non-quiescence show increased protein content
Published: 2019-08-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Nutrition, Organismal Biological Physiology
Increasing demand for food production requires improvements as well as openness to new sources of protein. Single Cell Protein derived from microbes has been intensively studied as a supplement for traditional sources of proteins, both for animal feed and direct human consumption. Food grade yeast, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has already been successfully used in industry. Here, we [...]
Mapping the dynamics of research networks in ecology and evolution using co-citation analysis (1975–2015)
Published: 2019-08-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In this paper we used a co-citation network analysis to quantify and illustrate the dynamic patterns of research in ecology and evolution over 40 years (1975–2014). We addressed questions about the historical patterns of development of these two fields. Have ecology and evolution always formed a coherent body of literature? What ideas have motivated research activity in subfields, and how long [...]
Individual variation in thermal plasticity and its impact on mass-scaling
Published: 2019-08-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Physiological processes of individuals can be highly variable and there is mounting evidence that individuals can differ in how they respond to environmental change. The ability for individuals to reversibly adjust their metabolic rate in response to temperature (i.e., metabolic thermal plasticity) may affect mass-scaling at the population level. This process has rarely been investigated [...]
Parental breeding age effects on descendants’ longevity interact over two generations in matrilines and patrilines
Published: 2019-08-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Individuals within populations vary enormously in mortality risk and longevity, but the causes of this variation remain poorly understood. A potentially important and phylogenetically widespread source of such variation is maternal age at breeding, which typically has negative effects on offspring longevity. Here, we show that paternal age can affect offspring longevity as strongly as maternal [...]
Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta-analysis
Published: 2019-08-01
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Research focusing on among-individual differences in behaviour (“animal personality”) has been blooming for over a decade. One of the central theories explaining the maintenance of behavioural variation posits a trade-off between behaviour and survival with individuals expressing greater “risky” behaviours suffering higher mortality. Here, for the first time, we synthesize the existing empirical [...]
Experimentally altered rainfall regimes and host root traits affect grassland arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities
Published: 2019-07-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Future climate scenarios predict changes in rainfall regimes. These changes are expected to affect plants via effects on the expression of root traits associated with water and nutrient uptake. Associated microorganisms may also respond to these new precipitation regimes, either directly in response to changes in the soil environment or indirectly in response to altered root trait expression. We [...]
Temporal dynamics of mycorrhizal fungal communities and co-associations with grassland plant communities following experimental manipulation of rainfall
Published: 2019-07-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Climate models project overall a reduction in rainfall amounts and shifts in the timing of rainfall events in mid-latitudes and sub-tropical dry regions, which threatens the productivity and diversity of grasslands. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may help plants to cope with expected changes but may also be impacted by changing rainfall, either via the direct effects of low soil moisture on [...]