Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biology
Mobbing in animals: a thorough review and proposed future directions
Published: 2021-10-26
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Communication, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mobbing is an important anti-predator behavior where prey harass and attack a predator to lower the immediate and long-term risk posed by predators, warn others, and communicate about the predator’s threat. While this behavior has been of interest to humans since antiquity, and aspects of it have been well researched for the past 50 years, we still know little about its ecology and the [...]
A force competition of predator on urban ecosystem
Published: 2021-10-25
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Biodiversity, Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Definitely the fact, is an undeniable impact of habitat change and fragmentation in the urban ecosystem take effect to species loss causes population decline into local extinction. The results that emerged from habitat selection in ecology in this case study may suggest possible opportunistic of population turnover are caused by behaviour adaptive in the life-history of predators. And provides [...]
Arboreal locomotion and trophic security at the dawn of Euprimate vision
Published: 2021-10-23
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Zoology
Primate vision is thought to have evolved in connection with life in the trees. However, several inter-related origins theories—those addressing possible co-evolution with size, predation, diet, daylight, locomotion, and groups—also provide reasonable explanations of their distinct cranial-visual morphology. We hypothesized that demand for high-speed landings in arboreal environments facilitated [...]
Ecology and conservation of a living fossil: Australias Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis)
Published: 2021-10-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Horticulture, Life Sciences, Plant Biology, Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The iconic Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) is a critically endangered Australian conifer and one of the world’s rarest trees with only 46 mature individuals remaining in the wild. The species is regarded as a ‘living fossil’ and was discovered on the brink of extinction following a natural historical decline. While its discovery has enabled crucial intervention for its long-term conservation, it [...]
Causes and consequences of variation in early-life telomere length in a bird metapopulation
Published: 2021-10-16
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physiology
1. Environmental conditions during early-life development can have lasting effects on individual quality and fitness. Telomere length (TL) may correlate with early-life conditions and may be an important mediator or biomarker of individual quality or pace-of-life, as periods of increased energy demands can increase telomere attrition due to oxidative stress. Thus, knowledge of the mechanisms that [...]
Orchid fruiting success is unrelated to surrounding floral resources in South Australian plant communities
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)
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
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”
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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 [...]