Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
Honey Bee Diversity Is Swayed by Migratory Beekeeping and Trade Despite Conservation Practices: Genetic Evidences for the Impact of Anthropogenic Factors on Population Structure
Published: 2019-10-14
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Apiculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Zoology
The intense admixture of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) populations at a global scale is mostly attributed to the widespread migratory beekeeping practices and replacement of queens and colonies with non-native races or hybrids of different subspecies. These practices are also common in Anatolia and Thrace, but their influence on the genetic make-up of the five native subspecies of honey bees has [...]
Experimenting with the past to improve environmental monitoring programs
Published: 2019-10-14
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Long-term monitoring programs are a fundamental part of both understanding system dynamics and informing management decisions. However, monitoring programs not always designed to consider statistical power, site selection, or the full costs and benefits of monitoring. Further, data from monitoring programs with different goals and protocols are now being combined for comparative analyses. Key [...]
Avian trait specialization is negatively associated with urban tolerance
Published: 2019-10-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Generalist species — with their wide niche breadths — are often associated with urban environments, while specialist species are likely to be most at-risk of increasing urbanization processes. But studies which quantify the relationship between trait specialization (i.e., niche breadth) and urban tolerance are generally methodologically limited, with repeatable robust methods to easily quantify [...]
Assessing symbiont extinction risk using cophylogenetic data
Published: 2019-09-25
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Parasitology
Symbionts have a unique mode of life that has attracted the attention of ecologists and evolutionary biologists for centuries. As a result of this attention, these disciplines have produced a mature body of literature on host-symbiont interactions. In contrast, the discipline of symbiont conservation is still in a foundational stage. Here, we aim to integrate methodologies on symbiont [...]
Evidence synthesis for tackling research waste
Published: 2019-09-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
There is an urgent need for a change in research workflows so that pre-existing knowledge is better utilised in designing new research. A formal assessment of the accumulated knowledge prior to research approval would reduce the waste of already limited resources caused by asking low priority questions.
Movement-mediated community assembly and coexistence
Published: 2019-09-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Organismal movement is ubiquitous and facilitates important ecological mechanisms that drive community and metacommunity composition and hence biodiversity. In most existing ecological theories and models in biodiversity research, movement is represented simplistically, ignoring the behavioural basis of movement and consequently the variation in behaviour at species and individual level. However, [...]
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: 2019-08-23
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 [...]
Experimentally altered rainfall regimes and host root traits affect grassland arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities
Published: 2019-07-30
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: 2019-07-30
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: 2019-07-18
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: 2019-07-16
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: 2019-06-18
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 [...]