Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity
Advances in the reconstruction of the Spider Tree of Life: a roadmap for spider systematics and comparative studies
Published: 2022-12-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Genomics, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
In the last decade and a half, advances in genetic sequencing technologies have revolutionized systematics, transforming the field as studying morphological characters; a few genetic markers have given way to genomic data sets in the phylogenomic era. A plethora of molecular phylogenetic studies on many taxonomic groups have come about, converging on, or refuting prevailing morphology or [...]
Hybridization boosters diversification in a Neotropical orchid group
Published: 2022-12-14
Subjects: Biodiversity, Genomics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Plant Biology, Population Biology
Genetic data shows that cryptic hybrids are more common than previously thought and that hybridization and introgression are widespread processes in nature. Regardless of this, studies on hybridization are scarce for the highly speciose Bulbophyllum. The genus presents more than 2,200 species and many examples of recent radiations, in which hybridization is expected to be frequent. Currently, [...]
Understanding local plant extinctions before it’s too late: bridging evolutionary genomics with global ecology.
Published: 2022-12-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Understanding evolutionary genomic and population processes within a species range is key to anticipating the extinction of plant species before it is too late. However, most models of biodiversity risk projections under global change do not account for the genetic variation and local adaptation of different populations. Population diversity is critical to understanding extinction because [...]
Plant traits poorly predict winner and loser shrub species in a warming tundra biome
Published: 2022-11-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Plant Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Climate change is leading to a species redistributions. In the tundra biome, many shrub species are expanding into new areas, a process known as shrubification. However, not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species (those projected to expand and contract their ranges, and/or those that have increased or decreased in cover over time), and the characteristics [...]
Accounting for cloud cover and circannual variation puts the effect of lunar phase on deer-vehicle collisions into perspective
Published: 2022-11-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Although several studies have focused on the influence of moonlight over deer-vehicle collisions, findings have been inconsistent. This may be due to neglecting the effects of cloud cover, a major impediment to moon illumination, and circannual variation in both deer and human activity. We modeled how median cloud cover interacted with the illuminated fraction of the moon in affecting daily roe [...]
Typification of plants illustrated by Feuillée: a reply to Zanotti et al.
Published: 2022-11-18
Subjects: Biodiversity
ABSTRACT: Zanotti et al. (2022a) lectotypified Gnaphalium viravira Feuillée ex Molina with its illustration in Feuillée (1725). They concluded that this illustration qualified as original material seen by Molina (1782). However, Hershkovitz (2020a, b) had concluded that Molina had not seen any of the illustrations in Feuillée (1725), thus none qualify as original material for taxa he validly [...]
The cost of being a non-native English speaker in science
Published: 2022-11-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, International and Intercultural Communication, Publishing, Scholarly Publishing
The use of English as the common language of science represents a major impediment to maximising the contribution of non-native English speakers to science. Yet few studies have quantified the consequences of language barriers on the career development of researchers who are non-native English speakers. Our survey demonstrates that non-native English speakers, especially early in their careers, [...]
Evolutionary origins of the Mesoamerican-eastern United States floristic disjunction: current status and future prospects
Published: 2022-11-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Biogeographic disjunction patterns, where multiple taxonomic groups are shared between isolated geographic areas, represent excellent systems for investigating the historical assembly of modern biotas as well as fundamental biological processes such as speciation, diversification, niche evolution, and evolutionary responses to climate change. Studies on plant genera disjunct across the Northern [...]
CONFOUND IT! The taxonomy of plants mistaken for Cistanthe arenaria (Cham.) Carolin ex Hershk. [MONTIACEAE, Cistanthe sect. Rosulatae (Reiche) Hershk.]
Published: 2022-11-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Life Sciences
Cistanthe arenaria (Cham.) Carolin ex Hershk. is a species of Montiaceae distributed from Chile’s Maule to Araucanía Regions. But the name historically and currently has been applied also to readily distinct species distributed from the Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins to Coquimbo Regions: C. chamissoi (Barnéoud) Carolin ex Hershk., C. trigona (Bertero ex Colla) Carolin ex Hershk, C. [...]
Assessing the aesthetic attractivity of European butterflies: a web-based survey protocol
Published: 2022-11-03
Subjects: Biodiversity, Entomology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Aesthetic attractivity stands as an underestimated yet fundamental feature of species in conservation biology, significantly driving disproportionate protection efforts towards charismatic species. Despite the evidence, few attempts sought to precisely quantify the impact of aesthetic attractivity in defining priority of species for conservation actions (e.g. inclusion in International Union for [...]
Unstratified forests dominate the tropics especially in regions with lower fertility or higher temperatures
Published: 2022-11-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Forest Biology, Plant Biology
The stratified nature of tropical forest structure had been noted by early explorers, but until recent use of satellite-based LiDAR (GEDI, or Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation LiDAR), there has been no way to quantify stratification across all tropical forests. Understanding stratification is important because by some estimates, a majority of the world’s species inhabit tropical forest [...]
Small is big: A new conservation paradigm for amphibians
Published: 2022-11-02
Subjects: Biodiversity, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Many countries have responded to the current global biodiversity crisis by committing to protect 30% of the Earth by 2030, a goal known as “30 x 30”. However, an excessive emphasis on megafauna to the exclusion of other species weakens our current protected area (PA) network. This limited perspective overvalues large, connected PAs, while disregarding the potential impacts of small PAs in [...]
A globally integrated structure of taxonomy supporting biodiversity science and conservation
Published: 2022-10-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
All aspects of biodiversity research, from taxonomy to conservation, rely on data associated with species names. Effective integration of names across multiple fields is paramount and depends on coordination and organization of taxonomic data. We assess current efforts and find that even key applications for well-studied taxa still lack commonality in taxonomic information required for [...]
Deep reticulation: the long legacy of hybridization in vascular plant evolution
Published: 2022-10-26
Subjects: Biodiversity, Botany, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences
Hybridization has long been recognized as a fundamental evolutionary process in plants, but our understanding of its phylogenetic distribution and biological significance across deep evolutionary scales has been largely obscure—until recently. Over the past decade, genomic and phylogenomic datasets have revealed, perhaps not surprisingly, that hybridization, often associated with polyploidy, has [...]
Discovering the rules of plant biogeography using a trait-based approach
Published: 2022-09-30
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Lineage-specific traits determine how plants interact with their surrounding environment. As different species may find similar phenotypic solutions through evolution to tolerate, persist in and invade environments with certain characteristics, some traits may become more common in certain types of habitats. These general patterns of geographical trait distribution point towards the existence of [...]