Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Disentangling variational bias: the roles of development, mutation and selection

Haoran Cai, Diogo Melo, David Des Marais

Published: 2024-07-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The extraordinary diversity and adaptive fit of organisms to their environment depends fundamentally on the availability of variation. While many evolutionary studies assume that random mutations produce isotropic phenotypic variation, the distribution of variation available to natural selection is more restricted, as the distribution of phenotypic variation is affected by a range of factors in [...]

Repeatability and intra-class correlations from time-to-event data: towards a standardized approach

Kelsey McCune, Coralie Williams, Ned A Dochtermann, et al.

Published: 2024-07-20
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences

Many biological features are expressed as “time-to-event” traits, such as time to first reproduction or response to some stimulus. The analysis of these traits frequently produces right-censored data in cases where no event has occurred within a certain timeframe. The Cox proportional hazards (CPH) model, a type of survival analysis, accounts for censored data by estimating the hazard of an event [...]

Mapping migratory routes: Avian conservation-focused opportunities for a pan-European automated telemetry network

Lucy Mitchell, Vera Brust, Thiemo Karwinkel, et al.

Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology

Accelerated biodiversity loss during the Anthropocene has destabilised functional links within and between ecosystems. Migratory species that cross different ecosystems on their repeated journeys between breeding and non-breeding sites are particularly sensitive to global change because they are exposed to various, often ecosystem-specific threats. As these bring both lethal and non-lethal [...]

Social ageing varies within a population of bottlenose whales

Sam Froman Walmsley, Laura J Feyrer, Claire Girard, et al.

Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

How social behaviour changes as individuals age has important consequences for the health and function of both human and non-human societies. However, the extent of inter-individual variation in social ageing has been underappreciated, especially in natural populations of animals. Here, we leverage a photo-identification dataset spanning 35 years to examine social ageing in an Endangered [...]

Detection of energetic equivalence depends on food web architecture and estimators of energy use

Poppy Joaquina Romera, Benoit Gauzens, Ana Carolina Antunes, et al.

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Ecologists have long debated the universality of the energetic equivalence rule (EER), which posits that population energy use should be invariant with average body size due to negative size–density scaling. We explored size–density and size–energy use scaling across 183 geographically–distributed soil invertebrate food webs to investigate the universality of these fundamental EER assumptions. [...]

Cool topoclimates promote cold-adapted plant diversity in temperate mountain forests.

Jeremy Borderieux, Emiel De Lombaerde, Karen De Pauw, et al.

Published: 2024-07-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Climate strongly influences the composition and diversity of forest plant communities. Recent studies have highlighted the role of tree canopies in shaping understory thermal conditions at small spatial scales (i.e. microclimate), especially in lowland forests. In mountain forests, however, the influence of topography in environmental conditions (i.e., topoclimate) is ought to also influence [...]

From eggs to adulthood: sustained effects of early developmental temperature and corticosterone exposure on physiology and body size in an Australian lizard

Ondi Crino, Kristoffer H Wild, Christopher R. Friesen, et al.

Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

As global temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, developing animals may be increasingly exposed to elevated temperatures. Developing vertebrates can be affected by elevated temperatures directly, and indirectly through maternal effects such as increased exposure to prenatal glucocorticoid hormones. Although many studies have examined how elevated temperatures and glucocorticoid [...]

Species lists of the Koffler Scientific Reserve at Jokers Hill, Ontario, Canada

Tubba Babar, Sean Blaney, Theresa McKenzie, et al.

Published: 2024-06-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

This document includes taxonomically-organized lists of all vascular plants, amphibians and reptiles, birds, and mammals recorded from the 350 ha Koffler Scientific Reserve of the University of Toronto, in King Township, Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada (44° 01' N, 79° 31' W). These lists were initially compiled by C.S. Blaney and were published as an appendix to his M.Sc. thesis [...]

Is the audience gender-blind? Smaller attendance in female talks highlights imbalanced visibility in academia

Júlia Rodrigues Barreto, Isabella Romitelli, Pamela Cristina Santana, et al.

Published: 2024-05-27
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Evolution, Gender Equity in Education, Higher Education, Inequality and Stratification, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Psychological Phenomena and Processes

Although diverse perspectives are fundamental for fostering and advancing science, power relations have limited the development, propagation of ideas, and recognition of political minority groups in academia. Gender bias is one of the most well-documented processes, leading women to drop out of their academic careers due to fewer opportunities and lower recognition. Using long-term data [...]

Light Pollution at Sea: Implications and Potential Hazards of Human Activity for Offshore Bird and Bat Movements in the Greater North Sea

Cormac Walsh, Ommo Hüppop, Thiemo Karwinkel, et al.

Published: 2024-05-24
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management, Zoology

Human activity in the North Sea is intensifying, as emerging uses, such as offshore wind farms (OWFs) and liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals, are added to fishing, freight shipping and fossil fuel production as traditional forms of resource exploitation. The volume and scale of these additional installations are projected to increase substantially in the coming decades, which amplifies the need [...]

Designing causal mediation analyses to quantify intermediary processes in ecology

Hannah E Correia, Laura E Dee, Paul J Ferraro

Published: 2024-05-13
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistical Methodology

Ecologists seek to understand the intermediary ecological processes through which changes in one attribute in a system affect other attributes. Yet, quantifying the causal effects of these mediating processes in ecological systems is challenging. We must define what we mean by a “mediated effect”, determine what assumptions are required to estimate mediation effects without bias, and assess [...]

Global review of shorebird tracking publications: Gaps and priorities for research and conservation

Grégoire Michel, Josh Nightingale, Martin Beal, et al.

Published: 2024-05-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences

Electronic tracking has enabled rapid advances in knowledge of the movement behaviour and habitat use of shorebirds (Charadriiformes), and is thus making a growing contribution to their conservation. However, developing a useful coherent global strategy for tracking these taxa requires an overview of the current availability of data and how it varies along regional and ecological lines. To this [...]

Guidance framework to apply best practices in ecological data analysis: Lessons learned from building Galaxy-Ecology

Coline Royaux, Jean-Baptiste Mihoub, Marie Jossé, et al.

Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Bioinformatics, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Numerous conceptual frameworks exist for best practices in research data and analysis (e.g. Open Science and FAIR principles). In practice, there is a need for further progress to improve transparency, reproducibility, and confidence in ecology. Here, we propose a practical and operational framework for researchers and experts in ecology to achieve best practices for building analytical [...]

Effectiveness of toxic baiting for the control of canines and felines

Yong Zhi Foo, Daniel W.A. Noble, Patrick Leo Taggart

Published: 2024-04-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Toxic baiting has been widely adopted for the control of exotic canines and felines. However, high variability in findings make it difficult to gauge the overall efficacy of this control method. We conducted a meta-analysis of the efficacy of baiting for the feral cat, red fox and dingo; our outcome of interest was apparent predator survival. Our dataset contained 121 effects from 34 studies, [...]

Cryptic species and hybridisation in corals: challenges and opportunities for conservation and restoration

Cynthia Riginos, Iva Popovic, Zoe Meziere, et al.

Published: 2024-02-14
Subjects: Genomics, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The conservation and management of coral reef ecosystems will benefit from accurate assessments of reef-building coral species diversity. However, the true diversity of corals may be obfuscated by cryptic yet genetically distinct groups, which are likely more pervasive than currently recognised. Here, we investigate the prevalence of cryptic coral groups and assess evidence for their permeability [...]

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