Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
The Natural History of the Satellite Lakes of Lake Malawi
Published: 2019-09-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Large, long-lived lakes, such as Lake Baikal and the African Great Lakes are known for their diverse endemic faunas. Nearby smaller isolated lakes have long been hypothesised to facilitate allopatric speciation, such as Lake Nabugabo at the edge of Lake Victoria, helping seed the radiation in the large lakes. Furthermore, crater lakes, formed by volcanic activity are often deep, long-lived and [...]
How to build a biodiverse city: environmental determinants of bird diversity within and among 1,581 cities
Published: 2019-08-22
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 [...]
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 [...]
Relationships between mycorrhizal type and leaf flammability in the Australian flora
Published: 2019-07-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Evolution, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences
Mycorrhizal fungi have been linked to fire processes in natural ecosystems via their effects on litter decomposability but, to our knowledge, relationships between mycorrhizal fungi and leaf traits directly associated with aspects of flammability have not been studied. Here, we assessed the relationships among leaf traits and host mycorrhizal type for 77 species of Australian trees and shrubs to [...]
Resource allocation to growth or luxury consumption drives mycorrhizal responses
Published: 2019-07-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
Highly variable phenotypic responses in mycorrhizal plants challenge our functional understanding of plant-fungal mutualisms. Using non-invasive high-throughput phenotyping, we observed that arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi relieved phosphorus (P) limitation and enhanced growth of Brachypodium distachyon under P-limited conditions, while photosynthetic limitation under low nitrogen (N) was [...]
Moving on from the insect apocalypse narrative: engaging with evidence-based insect conservation
Published: 2019-07-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences
Recent studies showing temporal changes in local and regional insect populations received exaggerated global media coverage. Confusing and inaccurate science communication on this important issue could have counter-productive effects on public support for insect conservation. The ‘insect apocalypse’ narrative is fuelled by a limited number of studies that are restricted geographically [...]
The ‘Holy Grail’ in Phylogenetic Reconstruction: Seeing the Forest for the Trees?
Published: 2019-06-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Systematic/macroevolutionary biology has dedicated much of the past 50 years of its energy and resources in an effort to resolve definitively the one true ‘tree of life’ and to explain materially its cause. But, no matter the quantity/quality of data, experimentation, and analysis, the effort is hampered by persistent and ever-accumulating contradictory observations. This may be an indication [...]
On the importance of the megabiota to the functioning of the biosphere
Published: 2019-06-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A prominent signal of the Anthropocene is the extinction and population reduction of the megabiota – the largest animals and plants on the planet. However, we lack a predictive framework for the sensitivity of megabiota during times of rapid global change and how they impact the functioning of ecosystems and the biosphere. Here, we extend metabolic scaling theory and use global simulation models [...]
Open Access Principles and Practices Benefit Conservation
Published: 2019-05-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Open access is often contentious in the scientific community, but its implications for conservation are under-discussed or omitted entirely from scientific discourse. Access to literature is a key factor impeding implementation of conservation research, and many open access models and concepts that are little-known by most conservation researchers may facilitate implementation. Conservation [...]
A continental measure of urbanness predicts avian response to local urbanization
Published: 2019-03-26
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Understanding species-specific relationships with their environment is essential for ecology, biogeography, and conservation biology. Moreover, understanding how these relationships change with spatial scale is critical to mitigating potential threats to biodiversity. But methods which measure inter-specific variation in responses to environmental parameters, generalizable across multiple spatial [...]
Mapping and understanding the digital biodiversity knowledge about vertebrates in the Atlantic Rainforest
Published: 2019-03-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Biodiversity data are fundamental for macroecological studies. Recent efforts on gathering global data have not been sufficient to surpass biases and gaps. This incompleteness has serious consequences on conservation and ecological understanding, therefore it is of major importance to map, quantify and describe these flaws. In this paper we aimed to assess inventory incompleteness for the [...]
Climate, human disturbance and geometric constraints drive the elevational richness pattern of birds in a biodiversity hotspot in south-western China
Published: 2019-02-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
We explored the elevational richness patterns of birds in a biodiversity hotspot in south-western China, the Gaoligong Mountains and assessed the role of different spatial factors, climatic factors and landscape composition in shaping the richness patterns. The east slope of the southern part of Gaoligong Mountains (24.79°N-26.49°N, 98.65°E-98.93°E) is the western-most part of the Hengduan [...]
Ice-free area expansion compounds the non-native species threat to Antarctic terrestrial biodiversity
Published: 2019-02-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Warming across ice-covered regions will result in changes to both the physical and climatic environment, revealing new ice-free habitat and new climatically suitable habitats for non-native species establishment. Recent studies have independently quantified each of these aspects in Antarctica, where ice-free areas form crucial habitat for the majority of terrestrial biodiversity. Here we [...]