Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
Emergent relationships between the functional diversity of marine zooplankton and ecosystem functioning in the global ocean
Published: 2024-07-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Copepods are a major group of the mesozooplankton and thus a key part of marine ecosystems worldwide. Their fitness and life strategies are determined by their functional traits which allow different species to exploit various ecological niches. The range of functional traits expressed in a community define its functional diversity (FD), which can be used to investigate how communities utilize [...]
Bimodal seasonal activity of moths and elevation, weather and land use as drivers of their diversity
Published: 2024-07-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Entomology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Moths are an important part of terrestrial insect diversity and contribute substantially to ecosys-tem functioning. Yet, how their activity varies with the season and how different biotic and abiotic factors (elevation, weather, land use) are simultaneously linked to moth community characteristics are still poorly understood. We analysed a vast moth community dataset from Switzerland collected by [...]
Accelerating ecosystem monitoring through computer vision with deep metric learning
Published: 2024-07-19
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Feature extraction from environmental observation data based on deep learning models has made significant progress. However, the current methods may not be optimal because of the increasing volume of data, complexity of data characteristics, and labeled data limitations. In this study, we focused on deep metric learning as a new application for environmental observation data to overcome these [...]
Scanning the skies for migrants: Conservation-focused opportunities for a pan-European automated telemetry network
Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology
Accelerated biodiversity loss during the Anthropocene has destabilised functional links within and between ecosystems. Migratory species that cross different ecosystems on their repeated journeys between breeding and non-breeding sites are particularly sensitive to global change because they are exposed to various, often ecosystem-specific threats. As these bring both lethal and non-lethal [...]
Assisted colonisation for ecosystem function: a thought experiment for the British Isles
Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Climate change is driving the rapid reorganisation of the world’s biota as species shift their ranges to track suitable conditions, however habitat fragmentation and other barriers hinder this adaptive response for species with limited dispersal ability. The translocation of species into newly suitable areas to which they are unable to disperse naturally has been suggested to conserve species [...]
Evaluation of livelihoods programming in Biodiversity Challenge Funds projects
Published: 2024-07-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Economics
The UK government's Biodiversity Challenge Funds (BCF; including Darwin Initiative, Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, and Darwin Plus) have funded hundreds of conservation projects across the Global South since the early 1990s. Increasingly, these projects include goals relating to human livelihoods, recognising the complex interrelationships between poverty reduction and biodiversity [...]
The Genomics for Australian Plants (GAP) framework initiative – developing genomic resources for understanding the evolution and conservation of the Australian flora.
Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Genomics
The generation and analysis of genome-scale data—genomics—is driving a rapid increase in plant biodiversity knowledge. However, the speed and complexity of technological advance in genomics presents challenges for its widescale use in evolutionary and conservation biology. Here, we introduce and describe a national-scale collaboration conceived to build genomic resources and capability for [...]
Variation in the diversity of Sotalia (Cetacea:Delphinidae) dolphin whistle repertoires at a continental scale
Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
1. While cetaceans are known to produce large and complex acoustic repertoires, the challenges of exhaustively sampling sounds at sea and counting relevant signals has precluded an understanding of their true repertoire diversity. 2. Here we quantify and compare the whistle repertoires of 16 populations in the genus Sotalia, belonging to two sister species, the Guiana dolphin (Sotalia [...]
Microbial functional diversity and redundancy: moving forward
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Microbiology
Microbial functional ecology is expanding as we can now measure the traits of wild microbes that affect ecosystem functioning. Here, we review techniques and advances that could be the bedrock for a unified framework to study microbial functions. We then explore the technical, ecological, and evolutionary processes that could explain environmental patterns of microbial functional diversity and [...]
Strong small-scale differentiation but no cryptic species within the two isopod species Asellus aquaticus and Proasellus coxalis in a restored urban river system (Emscher, Germany)
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Zoology
Worldwide, humans have strongly altered river networks. Key changes resulted in modified hydromorphology, poor habitat quality and availability, migration barriers, and pollution. Restoration measures aim at mitigating anthropogenic stressors and to restore connectivity, but the biological success of the measures is not guaranteed. Analyzing genetic diversity and population structure of target [...]
Topoclimate buffers floristic diversity from macroclimate in temperate mountain forests.
Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Microclimates strongly influence the composition and diversity of forest plant communities. Recent studies have highlighted the role of tree canopies in shaping understory thermal conditions at small spatial scales, especially in lowland forests. In mountain forests, however, the influence of topography in environmental conditions (e.g. topoclimate) is ought to also influence plants’ perceived [...]
Phenological Patterns of Woody Plant Species in a Tropical Dry Forest, Bannerghatta National Park, Bengaluru
Published: 2024-06-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring natural stages in the life cycle of an organism. These natural stages, such as the plant's reproductive cycles, are being affected by the changing climate. The current study aims to understand the effect of weather parameters on the phenology of dry forests in Bannerghatta National Park. Two transects with 504 reproductively mature individuals [...]
Range size variably predicts genetic diversity in Gehyra geckos
Published: 2024-06-25
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
Genetic diversity is a fundamental population genetic parameter, and predicts adaptive capacity. Neutral theory predicts a positive correlation between population (or range) size and genetic diversity, but this can be confounded by other demographic processes. To investigate the role of range size, population fluctuation and introgression in determining genetic diversity, we generate and analyse [...]
L’espèce incertaine et les taxons flous
Published: 2024-06-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
La question de la « bonne » définition de l’espèce, qui unit les biologistes, les naturalistes et les personnes impliquées dans l’usage ou la conservation de la biodiversité, est constamment réactualisée par les progrès des connaissances sur l’évolution et la spéciation. Cette question est loin [...]
Genes from space: Leveraging Earth Observation satellites to monitor genetic diversity
Published: 2024-06-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Genetic diversity within and among populations is essential for species persistence. While targets and indicators for genetic diversity are captured in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, assessing genetic diversity across many species at national and regional scales remains challenging. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) need accessible tools for reliable and [...]