Filtering by Subject: Biology
Published: 2023-05-30
Subjects: Biology
Aim: Trophic interactions are central to our understanding of essential ecosystem functions as well as their stability. Predicting these interactions has become increasingly common due to the lack of empirical data on trophic interactions for most taxa in most ecosystems. We aim to determine whether and how accurately we can extrapolate to new communities both in terms of pairwise predator-prey [...]
Published: 2023-05-28
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology
Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that infect and replicate within bacterial hosts, playing a significant role in regulating microbial populations and ecosystem dynamics. However, phages from extreme environments such as polar regions remain relatively understudied due to challenges like restricted ecosystem access and low biomass. Understanding the diversity, structure, and functions of [...]
Published: 2023-05-05
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Economics, Medical Sciences, Philosophy, Psychology, Public Health, Sociology
Recent trends in a range of scientific fields have seen a shift towards research and methods concerning individual differences and individualisation. This article brings together various scientific disciplines—ecology, evolution, and animal behaviour; medicine and psychiatry; public health and sport/exercise science; sociology; psychology; economics and management—and conceptually integrates [...]
Published: 2023-04-26
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Developing countries such as the Philippines suffer from a lack of policy development and implementation on wastewater treatment and discharge. Chlorella vulgaris is a microscopic green algae that has been employed in other countries for WWT due to its ability to simultaneously reduce pollutants and produce valuable biomass. However, challenges in technology adaptation such as differential [...]
Published: 2023-04-24
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Biology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Many animals utilize self-built structures – so-called extended phenotypes – to enhance body functions, such as thermoregulation, prey capture or defence. Yet, it is unclear whether the evolution of animal constructions supplements or substitutes body functions. Here, using Austral brown spiders, we explored if the evolutionary loss and gain of silken webs as extended prey capture devices [...]
Published: 2023-04-12
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences
It is generally thought that behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change, plays an important role in the ability of species to rapidly expand their geographic range. Great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) are a social, polygamous species that is rapidly expanding its geographic range by settling in new areas and habitats. They are behaviorally flexible [...]
Published: 2023-03-27
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Plants harbour an astonishing amount of chemodiversity, i.e., diversity of specialized metabolites, at different scales. For instance, individual plants can produce a large number of different specialized metabolites and individuals in a population can differ in their metabolite composition. Given the ecological and economic importance of plant chemodiversity, it is important to understand how it [...]
Published: 2023-03-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Applied Mathematics, Biogeochemistry, Biology, Dynamic Systems, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Soil Science, Sustainability
Ecosystem management is integral to the future of soils, yet anthropogenic drivers represent a key source of uncertainty in ecosystem models. First- and new-generation soil models formulate many soil pools using first-order decomposition, which tends to generate simpler yet numerous parameters. Systems or complexity theory, developed across various scientific and social fields, may help improve [...]
Published: 2023-03-02
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Cannibalistic behaviour between tadpoles of dendrobatoid poison frogs has been observed in several species with complex parental care dynamics, leading to the idea that it may have played a role in the evolution of parental care. However, the existence or characteristics of this behaviour remain largely unknown beyond a handful of well-studied species. I report direct and indirect observations of [...]
Published: 2023-02-27
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology
Understanding the nutritional requirements of captive animals is necessary for proper animal husbandry, however, the specific dietary requirements for many amphibian species commonly kept in captivity are unknown. Like most vertebrates, frogs cannot synthesize carotenoids or vitamin A, and must therefore obtain these essential nutrients through diet. It is unclear if amphibians can cleave [...]
Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Biology, Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Plant Sciences, Plant Sciences, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Many perennial plants in semi-arid rangelands have experienced population declines, and understanding the ecological and demographic processes behind these declines is important to slowing or reversing them. Although anthropogenic disturbances have driven declines across many landscapes, other sorts of environmental variability, such as the differences in intensity of solar radiation with aspect, [...]
Published: 2023-02-16
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Work carried out since the late 70s has provided key insights into the comparative biomechanics, kinematics, behaviour, and neurobiology of fish escape responses. With environmental change expected to affect the physiology and biomechanics of aquatic ectotherms, there is a growing interest in understanding how environmental stressors impact the swimming performance and behaviour of fishes during [...]
Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The structure and function of biochemical and developmental pathways determine the range of accessible phenotypes, which are the substrate for evolutionary change. Accordingly, we expect that observed phenotypic variation across species is strongly influenced by pathway structure, with different phenotypes arising due to changes in activity along pathway branches. Here we use flower color as a [...]
Published: 2023-01-15
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Predator-prey interactions have been suggested as drivers of diversity in different lineages, and the presence of anti-predator defences in some clades is linked to higher rates of diversification. Warning signals are some of the most widespread defenses in the animal world, and there is evidence of higher diversification rates in aposematic lineages. The mechanisms behind such species richness, [...]
Published: 2023-01-03
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Surveys assessing attitudes and values about the environment can help predict human behavior towards wildlife and develop effective conservation goals alongside local communities. Southern Alabama is a hotspot for biodiversity and endemism in the United States and is in need of studies to protect its wildlife. Land and wildlife management practices in Alabama have moved from indigenous-led [...]