Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Community context matters for bacteria-phage ecology and evolution
Published: 2021-05-26
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Bacteria-phage symbioses are ubiquitous in nature and serve as valuable biological models. Historically, the ecology and evolution of bacteria-phage systems have been studied in either very simple or very complex communities. Although both approaches provide insight, their shortcomings limit our understanding of bacteria and phages in multispecies contexts. To address this gap, here we synthesize [...]
Individualised niches: an integrative conceptual framework across behaviour, ecology, and evolution
Published: 2021-05-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Individuals differ. This seemingly trivial statement has nevertheless led to paradigm shifts, as three different fields of organismal biology have seen a marked change in key concepts over the past few decades. In animal behaviour, it has increasingly been realised that behavioural differences among individuals can be stable over time and across contexts, giving rise to the concept of animal [...]
Slow improvement to the archiving quality of open datasets shared by researchers in ecology and evolution
Published: 2021-05-18
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Many leading journals in evolution and ecology now mandate open data upon publication. Yet, there is very little oversight to ensure the completeness and reusability of archived datasets, and we currently have a poor understanding of the factors associated with high quality (FAIR) data-sharing. We assessed 362 open datasets linked to first- or senior-authored papers published by 100 principal [...]
A practical guide to question formation, systematic searching and study screening for literature reviews in ecology and evolution
Published: 2021-05-12
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences
1. Well-conducted systematic reviews are invaluable for synthesizing research findings. The conclusions of a review depend on how the research question was formulated, how relevant studies were found, and how studies were selected for synthesis. 2. Here, we present a practical guide for ecologists and evolutionary biologists on formulating a question for a systematic review, and finding a [...]
Evaluating ecological uniqueness over broad spatial extents using species distribution modelling
Published: 2021-05-11
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Aim: Local contributions to beta diversity (LCBD) can be used to identify sites with high ecological uniqueness and exceptional species composition within a region of interest. Yet, these indices are typically used on local or regional scales with relatively few sites, as they require information on complete community compositions difficult to acquire on larger scales. Here, we investigated how [...]
Male age alone predicts paternity success under sperm competition when effects of age and past mating effort are experimentally separated
Published: 2021-05-10
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Older males often perform poorly under post-copulatory sexual selection. It is unclear, however, whether reproductive senescence is due to male age itself or the accumulated costs of the higher lifetime mating effort that is usually associated with male age. To date, very few studies have accounted for male mating history when testing for the effect of male age on sperm traits, and none test how [...]
Methods for testing publication bias in ecological and evolutionary meta-analyses
Published: 2021-04-09
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Publication bias threatens the validity of quantitative evidence from meta-analyses as it results in some findings being overrepresented in meta-analytic datasets because they are published more frequently or sooner (e.g., ‘positive’ results). Unfortunately, methods to test for the presence of publication bias, or assess its impact on meta-analytic results, are unsuitable for datasets with [...]
Temporal Change Detection Analysis of Monroe County, NY tree cover from 2009 to 2017
Published: 2021-03-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Forests provide many ecosystem services which are enjoyed by nearby residing communities. This includes pollution and flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, oxygen production, food, fuel, education, recreation, and aesthetics. These ecosystem services also come from urban and suburban forests. Urban ecosystems, specifically urban green spaces services have been noted to improve human health [...]
Phyloreferences: Tree-Native, Reproducible, and Machine-Interpretable Taxon Concepts
Published: 2021-03-06
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Engineering, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Software Engineering
Evolutionary and organismal biology have become inundated with data. At the same rate, we are experiencing a surge in broader evolutionary and ecological syntheses for which tree-thinking is the staple for a variety of post-tree analyses. To fully take advantage of this wealth of data to discover and understand large-scale evolutionary and ecological patterns, computational data integration, i.e. [...]
Evidence of paternal effects on telomere length increases in early-life
Published: 2021-03-02
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Offspring of older parents in many species display decreased longevity, a faster ageing rate and lower fecundity than offspring born to younger parents. Biomarkers, such as telomeres, that tend to shorten as individual age, may provide insight into the mechanisms of parental age effects. Parental age could determine telomere length either through inheritance of shortened telomeres or through [...]
An assessment of statistical methods for non-independent data in ecological meta-analyses: Comment
Published: 2021-02-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Recently, Song et al. (2020) conducted a simulation study using different methods to deal with non-independence resulting from effect sizes originating from the same paper – a common occurrence in ecological meta-analyses. The main methods that were of interest in their simulations were: 1) a standard random-effects model used in combination with a weighted average effect size for each paper [...]
A Roadmap Toward Predicting Species Interaction Networks (Across Space and Time)
Published: 2021-02-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Networks of species interactions underpin numerous ecosystem processes, but comprehensively sampling these interactions is difficult. Interactions intrinsically vary across space and time, and given the number of species that compose ecological communities, it can be tough to distinguish between a true negative (where two species never interact) from a false negative (where two species have not [...]
Habitat shapes diversity of gut microbiomes in a wild population of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)
Published: 2021-02-23
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Microbiome constitutes and important axis of individual variation, affecting physiology and body condition via a number of pathways. Consequently, microbiome may be involved in ecological feedbacks, manifesting themselves as associations between microbiome characteristics and ecological factors experienced by individuals. In this study we report on the diversity and habitat dependence of [...]
Collection and analysis of a global marine phytoplankton primary production dataset
Published: 2021-02-13
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Phytoplankton primary production is a key oceanographic process. It has intimate relationships with the marine food webs dynamics, the global carbon cycle and the Earth’s climate. The study of phytoplankton production on a global scale relies on indirect approaches due to the difficulties associated with field campaigns. On the other hand, modelling approaches require in situ data for both [...]
Urban tolerance of birds changes throughout the full annual cycle
Published: 2021-02-08
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Aim: Our objective was to quantify urban tolerance for North American birds across the full annual cycle. We tested (1) whether intra-annual variability of urban tolerance differed between migrants and residents and (2) whether intra-annual variability of urban tolerance was phylogenetically conserved. We then assessed how the relationship between ecological and life history traits and urban [...]