Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Evolutionary Ecology of Age at Natural Menopause: Implications for Public Health
Published: 2020-02-11
Subjects: Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Physiology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Evolutionary perspectives on menopause have focused on explaining why early reproductive cessation in females has emerged and why it is rare throughout the animal kingdom, but less attention has been given to exploring patterns of diversity in age at natural menopause. In this paper, we aim to generate new hypotheses for understanding human patterns of diversity in this trait, defined as age at [...]
The trade-off between information and pathogen transmission in animal societies
Published: 2020-02-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social structure can regulate information and pathogen transmission via social contact or proximity, which ultimately affects individual fitness. In theory, the same network properties that favor social information transmission also favor the spread of socially-transmitted pathogens, creating a trade-off between them. The mechanisms underlying the development and stability of individual [...]
Comparing ecological and evolutionary variability within datasets
Published: 2020-01-28
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Genetics and Genomics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Many key questions in evolutionary ecology require the use of variance ratios such as heritability, repeatability, and individual resource specialization. These ratios allow to understand how phenotypic variation is structured into genetic and non-genetic components, to identify how much organisms vary in the resources they use or how functional traits structure species communities. Understanding [...]
Time is money. Waiting costs explain why selection favors steeper time discounting in deprived environments.
Published: 2019-12-04
Subjects: Other Psychology, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Individuals exposed to deprivation tend to show a characteristic behavioural syndrome suggestive of a short time horizon. This pattern has traditionally been attributed to the intrinsically higher unpredictability of deprived environments, which renders waiting for long term rewards more risky (i.e. collection risks are high). In the current paper, based on a simple dynamic life history model, we [...]
Mapping the dynamics of research networks in ecology and evolution using co-citation analysis (1975–2015)
Published: 2019-08-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In this paper we used a co-citation network analysis to quantify and illustrate the dynamic patterns of research in ecology and evolution over 40 years (1975–2014). We addressed questions about the historical patterns of development of these two fields. Have ecology and evolution always formed a coherent body of literature? What ideas have motivated research activity in subfields, and how long [...]
The Evolutionary Psychology of Scientific Publishing: Cost-Benefit Optimization of Players in the Game
Published: 2019-07-10
Subjects: Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Peer reviewed scientific publishing is critical for communicating important findings, interpretations and theories in any branch of science. While the value of peer review is rarely doubted, much concern is being raised about the possible biases in the process. I argue here that most of the biases originate in the evolved innate tendency of every player to optimize one’s own cost benefits. [...]
Toward a Pluralistic Conception of Resilience
Published: 2019-06-28
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Dynamic Systems, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability, Systems Biology
The concept of resilience occupies an increasingly prominent position within contemporary efforts to confront many of modernitys most pressing challenges, including global environmental change, famine, infrastructure, poverty, and terrorism, to name but a few. Received views of resilience span a broad conceptual and theoretical terrain, with a diverse range of application domains and settings. In [...]
Communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition
Published: 2019-06-21
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mammals living in more complex social groups typically have large brains for their body size and many researchers have proposed that the primary driver of the increase in brain size through primate and hominin evolution are the selection pressures associated with sociality. Many mammals, and especially primates, use flexible signals that show a high degree of voluntary control and these signals [...]
Heritability and maternal effects on social attention during an attention bias task in a non-human primate, Macaca mulatta
Published: 2019-05-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social attention is fundamental to a wide range of behaviours in non-human primates. However, we know very little about the heritability of social attention in non-human primates, and the heritability of attention to social threat has not been assessed. Here, we provide data to begin to fill this gap in knowledge. We tested 67 female rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta, on an attention bias [...]
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 [...]
Returning the Earth to Mankind and Mankind to Earth: an Ecosystemic Approach to Advocacy, Public Policies, Research and Teaching Programmes
Published: 2019-01-20
Subjects: Other Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In view of the overwhelming pressures on the global environment and the need to disrupt the systems that drive them, an ecosystemic theoretical and practical framework is posited for the evaluation and planning of communication, advocacy, public policies, research and teaching programmes; Priority is given to a set of values, norms and policies in view of human well-being, quality of life and [...]