Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
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 [...]
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 [...]
Food web reconstruction through phylogenetic transfer of low-rank network representation
Published: 2021-08-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Despite their importance in many ecological processes, collecting data and information on ecological interactions, and therefore species interaction networks, is an exceedingly challenging task. For this reason, large parts of the world have a deficit of data of which species interact, and what we can expect the network structure of these interactions to be. As data collection alone is unlikely [...]
Facilitating dynamic and inclusive biodiversity conservation in Britain: an Anthropocene perspective
Published: 2021-08-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Summary We propose an approach to conservation centred on achieving positive future trajectories of dynamic change, applied to all locations and species, and based on societal inclusiveness. Strategies to facilitate change. We take an Anthropocene perspective, in which human society and biodiversity have been inextricably linked for over 10,000 years, and continuing biodiversity change is [...]
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 [...]
Dissimilarity of species interaction networks: quantifying the effect of turnover and rewiring
Published: 2021-07-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Despite having established its usefulness in the last ten years, the decomposition of ecological networks in components allowing to measure their β-diversity retains some methodological ambiguities. Notably, how to quantify the relative effect of mechanisms tied to interaction rewiring vs. species turnover has been interpreted differently by different authors. In this contribution, I present [...]
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. [...]
Day and night camera trap video is effective for identifying wild Asian elephants
Published: 2021-07-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Comparative Psychology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Camera traps provide a virtual window into the natural world of wild animals, as they provide a noninvasive way to capture anatomical and behavioral information. Regular monitoring of wild populations through the collection of behavioral and demographic data is critical for the conservation of endangered species like the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Identifying individual elephants can [...]
Existing indicators do not adequately monitor progress towards meeting invasive alien species targets
Published: 2021-07-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Monitoring the progress parties have made toward meeting global biodiversity targets requires appropriate indicators. The recognition of Invasive alien species (IAS) as a biodiversity threat has led to the development of specific targets aiming at reducing their prevalence and impact. However, indicators for adequately monitoring and reporting on the status of biological invasions have been slow [...]
Dataset of seized wildlife and their intended uses
Published: 2021-07-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) threatens conservation and biosecurity efforts. The Internet has greatly facilitated the trade of wildlife, and researchers have increasingly examined the Internet to uncover illegal trade. However, most efforts to locate illegal trade on the Internet are targeted to one or few taxa or products. Large-scale efforts to find illegal wildlife on the Internet [...]
Plant herbivore protection by arbuscular mycorrhizas: A role for fungal diversity?
Published: 2021-07-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
The symbiotic association between arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and terrestrial plants can enhance plant defences against insect herbivores. Despite advances in our understanding of how AM fungi affect plant tolerance and resistance based defence mechanisms, we contend that the role of fungal diversity in these interactions continues to be largely overlooked. This is problematic considering [...]
Developing a Nature Recovery Network using systematic conservation planning
Published: 2021-06-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Conservation area networks in most countries are fragmented and inadequate. To tackle this in England, government policies are encouraging stakeholders to create local-level Nature Recovery Networks. Here we describe work led by a wildlife organisation that used the systematic conservation planning approach to identify a Nature Recovery Network for three English counties and select focal areas [...]
Disentangling food-web environment relationships: a review with guidelines
Published: 2021-06-11
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Food webs represent energy fluxes and nutrient cycling between interacting species, underpinning ecosystem functioning. Whether and how interactions vary over environmental gradients is still largely unknown. We reviewed the literature searching for systematic relationships between structural food-web properties and environmental gradients. Temperature and biotic factors are amongst the most [...]
Analysing the distance decay of community similarity in river networks using Bayesian methods
Published: 2021-06-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Life Sciences
The distance decay of community similarity (DDCS) is a pattern that is widely observed in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Niche-based theories argue that species are sorted in space according to their ability to adapt to new environmental conditions. The ecological neutral theory argues that community similarity decays due to ecological drift. The continuum hypothesis provides an [...]
Evidence-based guidelines for automated conservation assessments of plant species
Published: 2021-06-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Assessing species’ extinction risk is vital to setting conservation priorities. However, assessment endeavours like the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species have significant gaps in coverage of some taxonomic groups. Automated assessment (AA) methods are gaining popularity to fill these gaps, leveraging improvements in computing and digitally-available information. Choices made in developing, [...]