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Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Biology

Orchid fruiting success is unrelated to surrounding floral resources in South Australian plant communities

Irene Martín-Forés, Samantha L. Bywaters, Ben Sparrow, et al.

Published: 2021-10-11
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

To maintain recruitment in orchid populations in an ecosystem setting, we must understand how surrounding floral resources affect fruiting success. We studied fruiting success in two endemic Australian species, Diruis pardina and Glossodia major, in relation to surrounding floral resources. Diuris pardina has a visually deceptive pollination strategy via mimicry of pea flowers, attracting [...]

Predation impacts brain allometry and offspring production in female guppies (Poecilia reticulata)

Regina Vega-Trejo, David Joseph Mitchell, Catarina Vila-Pouca, et al.

Published: 2021-10-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology

Survivorship under predation exerts strong selection on reproductive traits as well as on brain anatomy of prey. However, how exactly predation and brain evolution are linked has not been resolved as current empirical evidence is inconclusive. This may be due to predation pressure having different effects across life stages and/or due to confounding factors in ecological comparisons of predation [...]

Sea ice and substratum shape extensive kelp forests in the Canadian Arctic

Karen Filbee-Dexter, Kathleen A MacGregor, Camille Lavoie, et al.

Published: 2021-09-23
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology

The coastal zone of the Canadian Arctic represents 10% of the world’s coastline and is one of the most rapidly changing marine regions on the planet. To predict the consequences of these environmental changes, a better understanding of how environmental gradients shape coastal habitat structure in this area is required. We quantified the abundance and diversity of canopy forming seaweeds [...]

Comment on “Information arms race explains plant-herbivore chemical communication in ecological communities”

Ethan Bass, André Kessler

Published: 2021-09-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Sciences

Zu et al (Science, 19 Jun 2020, p. 1377) propose that an ‘information arms-race’ between plants and herbivores explains plant-herbivore communication at the community level. However, our analysis shows that key assumptions of the proposed model either a) conflict with standard evolutionary theory or b) are not supported by the available evidence. We also show that the presented statistical [...]

Computational Modeling and Evolutionary Implications of Biochemical Reactions in Bacterial Microcompartments

Clair A. Huffine, Lucas C Wheeler, Boswell Wing, et al.

Published: 2021-09-23
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biology, Life Sciences

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are protein-encapsulated compartments found across at least 23 bacterial phyla. BMCs contain a variety of metabolic processes that share the commonality of toxic or volatile intermediates, oxygen-sensitive enzymes and cofactors, or increased substrate concentration for magnified reaction rates. These compartmentalized reactions have been computationally modeled [...]

Glucocorticoids coordinate changes in gut microbiome composition in wild North American red squirrels

Lauren Petrullo, Tiantian Ren, Martin Wu, et al.

Published: 2021-09-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Microbiology

Gut microbiome diversity plays an important role in host health and fitness, in part through the diversification of gut metabolic function and pathogen protection. Elevations in glucocorticoids (GCs) appear to reduce gut microbiome diversity in experimental studies, suggesting that a loss of microbial diversity may be a negative consequence of increased GCs. However, given that ecological factors [...]

Functions for simulating data and designing studies of physiological flexibility in the acute glucocorticoid response to stressors.

Conor Taff

Published: 2021-09-15
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Endocrinology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology

Wild animals often experience unpredictable challenges that demand rapid and flexible responses. The glucocorticoid mediated stress response is one of the major systems that allows vertebrates to rapidly adjust their physiology and behavior. Given its role in responding to challenges, evolutionary physiologists have focused on the consequences of between-individual and, more recently, [...]

Assessing climate risk to support urban forests in a changing climate

Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez, Paul Rymer, Sally Power, et al.

Published: 2021-09-09
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The management of urban forests is a key element of resilience planning in cities across the globe. Urban forests provide ecosystem services as well as other nature-based solutions to 4.2 billion people living in cities. However, to continue to do so effectively, urban forests need to be able to thrive in an increasingly changing climate. Trees in cities are vulnerable to extreme heat and drought [...]

Many parasitoids lack adult fat accumulation, despite fatty acid synthesis: A discussion of concepts and considerations for future research

Bertanne Visser, Cécile Le Lann, Caroline M. Nieberding, et al.

Published: 2021-08-25
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Physiology

Fat reserves, specifically the accumulation of triacylglycerols, are a major energy source and play a key role for life histories. Fat accumulation is a conserved metabolic pattern across most insects, yet in most parasitoid species adults do not gain fat mass, even when nutrients are readily available and provided ad libitum. This extraordinary physiological phenotype has evolved repeatedly in [...]

Ecosystem size and complexity are extrinsic drivers of food chain length in branching networks

Justin Pomeranz, Jacques C. Finlay, Akira Terui

Published: 2021-08-15
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Understanding the drivers of food chain length in natural communities has intrigued ecologists since the publication of ‘food cycles’ by Elton in the early 20th century. Proposed drivers of food chain length have included extrinsic controls such as productivity, disturbance regime, and ecosystem size, as well as intrinsic factors including food web motifs. However, current theories have largely [...]

The potential for physiological performance curves to shape environmental effects on social behaviour

Shaun S Killen, Daphne Cortese, Lucy Cotgrove, et al.

Published: 2021-08-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology

As individual animals are exposed to varying environmental conditions, phenotypic plasticity will occur in a vast array of physiological traits. For example, shifts in factors such as temperature and oxygen availability can affect the energy demand, cardiovascular system, and neuromuscular function of animals that in turn impact individual behaviour. Here, we argue that non-linear changes in the [...]

Unreciprocated allogrooming hierarchies in a population of wild group-living mammals

Catherine E Nadin, David W. Macdonald, Sandra Baker, et al.

Published: 2021-08-06
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences

Allogrooming can relate to social status in mammalian societies, and thus, be used to infer social structure. This relationship has previously been investigated by examining an individual’s dominance rank and their total amount of allogrooming. This, however, does not account for the identity of allogrooming partners. We applied a novel approach, calculating the linearity and steepness of [...]

The evolutionary relevance of social learning and transmission of behaviors in non-social arthropods

Caroline M. Nieberding, Matteo Marcantonio, Raluca Voda, et al.

Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences

Research on social learning has centered around vertebrates, but evidence is accumulating that small-brained, non-social arthropods also learn from others. Social learning can lead to social inheritance when socially acquired behaviors are transmitted to subsequent generations. Here, we first highlight the complementarities between social and classical genetic inheritance, using oviposition site [...]

Transgenerational effects of obesogenic diets in rodents: a meta-analysis

Hamza Anwer, Margaret Morris, Daniel W.A. Noble, et al.

Published: 2021-08-02
Subjects: Biology, Diseases, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Nutrition

Obesity is a major health condition that affects millions worldwide. There is an increased interest in understanding the adverse outcomes associated with obesogenic diets. A multitude of studies have investigated the transgenerational impacts of maternal and parental obesogenic diets on subsequent generations of offspring, but results have largely been mixed. We conducted a systematic review [...]

Day and night camera trap video is effective for identifying wild Asian elephants

Sasha Montero-De La Torre, Sarah L Jacobson, Marnoch Yindee, et al.

Published: 2021-07-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Comparative Psychology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Camera traps provide a virtual window into the natural world of wild animals, as they provide a noninvasive way to capture anatomical and behavioral information. Regular monitoring of wild populations through the collection of behavioral and demographic data is critical for the conservation of endangered species like the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Identifying individual elephants can [...]

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