Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biology
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 [...]
Deploying Ecological Countermeasures as a Biosecurity Imperative
Published: 2021-03-08
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, International Public Health, Life Sciences, Maternal and Child Health, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Immunology and Infectious Disease, Population Biology, Public Health, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology, Zoology
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought biosecurity to the forefront of national security policy. Land use change is a fundamental driver of zoonotic disease outbreaks, yet substantial study is yet required to unravel the mechanisms by which land use-induced spillover operates. Ecological degradation may be the 21st Century’s most overlooked security threat. Within the biosecurity context, we introduce [...]
Guidelines for reporting methods to estimate metabolic rates by aquatic intermittent-flow respirometry
Published: 2021-02-22
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Interest in the measurement of metabolic rates is growing rapidly, due to the relevance of metabolism in understanding organismal physiology, behaviour, evolution and responses to environmental change. The study of metabolism in aquatic animals is undergoing an especially pronounced expansion, with more researchers utilising intermittent-flow respirometry as a research tool than ever before. [...]
CEUTA snowy plover open access data - COMMENTARY
Published: 2021-02-11
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Eberhart-Phillips et al. (2020, Scientific Data 7: 149) recently published a data-paper CeutaOPEN. However, the publication has significant shortcomings: the article does not explain the history nor the context of the project, it did not give credit to the developers of field methodology and data structure, and fails to acknowledge key contributions to the project. We request correcting these [...]
Raczka et al. Interactions between microbial diversity and substrate chemistry determine the fate of carbon in soil.
Published: 2021-01-19
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Microbial decomposition drives the transformation of plant-derived substrates into microbial products that form stable soil organic matter (SOM). Recent theories have posited that decomposition depends on an interaction between SOM chemistry with microbial diversity and resulting function. Here, we explicitly test these theories by coupling quantitative stable isotope probing and metabolomics to [...]
Condition-transfer maternal effects modulate sexual conflict
Published: 2021-01-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Strong sexual selection frequently favours males that increase their reproductive success by harming females, with potentially negative consequences for population growth. Understanding what factors modulate conflict between the sexes is hence critical to understand both the evolution of male and female phenotypes and the viability of populations in the wild. Here, we model the evolution of male [...]
COVID-19 restrictions and recreational fisheries in Ontario, Canada: preliminary insights from an online angler survey
Published: 2020-12-18
Subjects: Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding public health mitigation strategies have altered many facets of human life. And yet, little is known about how public health measures have impacted complex socio-ecological systems such as recreational fisheries. Using a web-based online snowball survey, we targeted resident anglers in Ontario, Canada, to obtain preliminary insight on how the pandemic has [...]
Ecological and environmental context shape the differential effects of a facilitator in its native and invaded ranges
Published: 2020-12-14
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Non-indigenous species often exhibit disproportionately strong negative effects in their introduced range compared to their native range, and much research has been devoted to understanding the role of shared evolutionary history, or lack thereof, in driving these differences. Less studied is whether non-indigenous species, particularly those that are important as facilitators in their native [...]
Ecological Countermeasures for Pandemic Prevention: When Ecological Restoration is a Human Health Imperative
Published: 2020-12-05
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Bacteriology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, Integrative Biology, International Public Health, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Microbiology, Parasitology, Pathogenic Microbiology, Population Biology, Public Health, Systems Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Veterinary Infectious Diseases, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology, Zoology
Ecological restoration should be regarded as a public health service. Unfortunately, the lack of quantitative linkages between environmental and human health has limited recognition of these principle. Advent of COVID-19 pandemic provides the impetus for the further discussion. We propose ecological countermeasures as highly targeted, landscape-based interventions to arrest the drivers of land [...]
Qualitative and quantitative methods show stability in patterns of Cepaea nemoralis shell polymorphism in the Pyrenees over five decades
Published: 2020-12-01
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Life Sciences
One of the emerging strengths of working with the land snail genus Cepaea is that historical collections can be compared against modern day samples, for instance to understand the impact of changing climate and habitat upon shell morph frequencies. However, one potential limitation is that prior studies scored shell ground colour by eye, usually in the field, into three discrete colours yellow, [...]
Ten considerations for conservation policy makers for the post-COVID-19 transition
Published: 2020-11-27
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Public health and safety concerns around the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have greatly changed human behaviour. Such shifts in behaviours including travel patterns, consumerism, and energy use, are variously impacting biodiversity during the human-dominated geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. Indeed, the dramatic reduction in human mobility and activity has been [...]
Mobilising molluscan models and genomes in biology
Published: 2020-11-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Life Sciences, Life Sciences
Molluscs are amongst the most ancient, diverse, and important of all animal taxa. Even so, no individual mollusc species has emerged as a broadly applied model system in biology. We here make the case that both perceptual and methodological barriers have played a role in the relative neglect of molluscs as research organisms. We then summarize the current application and potential of molluscs and [...]
Rock glaciers and related cold rocky landforms: overlooked climate refugia for mountain biodiversity
Published: 2020-10-18
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Mountains are global biodiversity hotspots where cold environments and their associated ecological communities are predicted to be threatened by climate warming. Considerable research attention has been devoted to understanding the ecological effects of alpine glacier and snowfield recession. However, much less attention has been given to identifying climate refugia in mountain ecosystems where [...]
Reducing land use-induced spillover risk by fostering landscape immunity: policy priorities for conservation practitioners
Published: 2020-10-15
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Immunity, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Immunology of Infectious Disease, Immunopathology, International and Area Studies, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Parasitology, Population Biology, Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration, Science and Technology Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Biology
Anthropogenic land use change is the major driver of zoonotic pathogen spillover from wildlife to humans. In response to the global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the agent of COVID-19 disease), there have been renewed calls for landscape conservation as a disease preventive measure. While protected areas are a vital conservation tool for wildlands, more than 50% of habitable land is now [...]
Insights from regional and short-term biodiversity monitoring datasets are valuable. A Reply to Daskalova et al. 2020 EcoEvoRxiv doi:10.32942/osf.io/cg3zs
Published: 2020-10-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Entomology, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
Reports of major losses in biodiversity have stimulated an increasing interest in temporal population changes, particularly in insects, which had received little attention in the past. Existing long-term datasets are often limited to a small number of study sites, few points in time, a narrow range of land-use intensities and only some taxonomic groups, or they lack standardized sampling. While [...]