Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Development time mediates the effect of larval diet on ageing and mating success of male antler flies in the wild
Published: 2020-03-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology
High-quality developmental environments often improve individual performance into adulthood, but allocating toward early-life traits, such as growth, development rate, and reproduction, may lead to trade-offs with late life performance. It is therefore uncertain how a rich developmental environment will affect the ageing process (senescence), particularly in wild insects. To investigate the [...]
Natural variation in the growth and development of Protopiophila litigata (Diptera: Piophilidae) developing in three moose (Artiodactyla: Cervidae) antlers
Published: 2020-03-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology
In animals, the early-life environment influences growth and development, which can have lasting effects on life history and fitness into adulthood. We investigated patterns of growth, pupal development time, and their covariation, in wild antler fly larvae (Protopiophila litigata; Diptera: Piophilidae) of both sexes collected from three discarded moose antlers of varying size, chewing damage [...]
Infected or informed? Social structure and the simultaneous transmission of information and infectious disease
Published: 2020-03-07
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences
Social interactions present opportunities for both information and infection to spread through populations. Social learning is often proposed as a key benefit of sociality, while disease epidemics are proposed as a major cost. Multiple empirical and theoretical studies have demonstrated the importance of social structure for either information or infectious disease, but rarely in combination. We [...]
Estimation of environmental and genetic contributions to telomere length variation in a wild mammal
Published: 2020-03-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Understanding individual variation in fitness-related traits requires separating the environmental and genetic determinants. Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that are thought to be a biomarker of senescence as their length predicts mortality risk and reflect the physiological consequences of environmental conditions. The relative contribution of genetic and environmental [...]
Intergroup food transfers in wild golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia)
Published: 2020-03-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Transfers of food between adults are uncommon in primates. Although golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia), are unique among primates in the extent of food transfers, reports of food transfers between adults have so far been restricted to captive or reintroduced individuals. Here, I report the first six recorded events of adult-adult food transfers between individuals belonging to [...]
A synthesis of dryland restoration lessons relevant to the San Joaquin Valley
Published: 2020-02-29
Subjects: Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Scientific synthesis is a set of tools relevant to evidence-informed decision making for the drylands of California. Tools include comprehensive theory and formal scientific syntheses of the published primary literature examining restoration in drylands. Restoration lessons consistently reported in the literature provide insights into applicable theory, species-specific practices, and [...]
Forest thinning in ponderosa pines increases carbon use efficiency and energy flow from primary producers to primary consumers
Published: 2020-02-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
A better understanding of carbon use efficiency and carbon allocation during disturbance is critical to improve simulations of the global carbon cycle and understanding future climate impacts. Forest thinning of high stem density, high elevation dry western US forests is becoming more common to reduce severe fire danger but there are uncertainties about how forest thinning may impact forest [...]
The molecular clock as a tool for understanding host-parasite evolution
Published: 2020-02-29
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The molecular clock in combination with evidence from the geological record can be applied to infer the timing and dynamics of evolutionary events. This has enormous potential to shed light on the complex and often evasive evolution of parasites. Here, we provide an overview of molecular clock methodology and recent advances that increase the potential for the study of host-parasite [...]
StableClim, continuous projections of climate stability from 21000 BP to 2100 CE at multiple spatial scales
Published: 2020-02-22
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Paleoclimatic data are used in eco-evolutionary models to improve knowledge of biogeographical processes that drive patterns of biodiversity through time, opening windows into past climate–biodiversity dynamics. Applying these models to harmonised simulations of past and future climatic change can strengthen forecasts of biodiversity change. StableClim provides continuous estimates of climate [...]
The Evolutionary Ecology of Age at Natural Menopause: Implications for Public Health
Published: 2020-02-12
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Physiology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Evolutionary perspectives on menopause have focused on explaining why early reproductive cessation in females has emerged and why it is rare throughout the animal kingdom, but less attention has been given to exploring patterns of diversity in age at natural menopause. In this paper, we aim to generate new hypotheses for understanding human patterns of diversity in this trait, defined as age at [...]
Countergradient variation in reptiles: thermal sensitivity of developmental and metabolic rates across locally adapted populations
Published: 2020-02-08
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Environmental temperature is a key driver of variation in physiological developmental rates in reptiles. Cooler temperatures extend development time and increase the amount of energy required to achieve hatching success, which can pose fitness consequences later in life. Yet, in locally-adapted populations, genetic variation often opposes environmental variation across ecological gradients, known [...]
The trade-off between information and pathogen transmission in animal societies
Published: 2020-02-05
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social structure can regulate information and pathogen transmission via social contact or proximity, which ultimately affects individual fitness. In theory, the same network properties that favor social information transmission also favor the spread of socially-transmitted pathogens, creating a trade-off between them. The mechanisms underlying the development and stability of individual [...]
Comparing ecological and evolutionary variability within datasets
Published: 2020-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Genetics and Genomics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Many key questions in evolutionary ecology require the use of variance ratios such as heritability, repeatability, and individual resource specialization. These ratios allow to understand how phenotypic variation is structured into genetic and non-genetic components, to identify how much organisms vary in the resources they use or how functional traits structure species communities. Understanding [...]
Dunnock social status correlates with sperm speed, but fast sperm does not always equal high fitness
Published: 2020-01-25
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Sperm competition theory predicts that males should modulate sperm investment according to their social status. Sperm speed (one proxy of sperm quality) also influences the outcome of sperm competition because fast sperm cells may fertilize eggs before slow sperm cells. We evaluated whether the social status of males predicted their sperm speed in a wild population of dunnocks (Prunella [...]
Using lichen communities as indicators of forest stand age and conservation value
Published: 2020-01-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Evaluating the conservation value of ecological communities is critical for forest management but can be challenging because it is difficult to survey all taxonomic groups of conservation concern. Lichens have long been used as indicators of late successional habitats with particularly high conservation value because lichens are ubiquitous, sensitive to fine-scale environmental variation, and [...]