Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Biology
SYSTEMATICS OF CALANDRINIA PILOSIUSCULA DC A.K.A. CALANDRINIA COMPRESSA SCHRAD. EX DC (MONTIACEAE–MONTIOIDEAE)
Published: 2020-05-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Life Sciences
Calandrinia compressa Schrad. ex DC (Prodr. 3: 359. 1828) is the name currently widely applied to a polymorphic annual species of Calandrinia sect. Calandrinia endemic to the Chilean Floristic Region. A total of ten validly published heterotypic names plus six horticultural designations (and orthographic variants thereof) have been considered at some point as taxonomically the same as C. [...]
Rapidly mapping fire effects on biodiversity at a large-scale using citizen science
Published: 2020-04-16
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The unprecedented scale of the 2019-2020 eastern Australian bushfires exemplifies the challenges that scientists and conservation biologists face monitoring the effects of biodiversity in the aftermath of large-scale environmental disturbances. After a large-scale disturbance there are conservation policy and management actions that need to be both timely and informed by data. By working with the [...]
Physiological condition of amphibians exposed to historical industrial pollution in a Brazilian biodiversity hotspot
Published: 2020-03-06
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
Industrial pollution is a significant global threat to biodiversity, but its consequences on rainforest ecosystems remains poorly understood. Amphibians are especially susceptible to pollutants released on natural environments due to their aquatic-terrestrial life cycle. Here, we explored the effects of severe historical air, water and soil industrial pollution of Cubatão Industrial Complex (São [...]
Sex- and context-specific associations between personality and a measure of fitness but no link with life history traits
Published: 2019-11-22
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The pace of life syndrome hypothesis posits that personality traits (i.e., consistent individual differences in behaviour) are linked to life history and fitness. Specifically, fast-paced individuals are predicted to be proactive (i.e., active and aggressive) with an earlier age at first reproduction, a shorter lifespan, and a higher fecundity than slow-paced individuals. Environmental conditions [...]
Non-avian reptile learning 40 years on: advances and promising new directions
Published: 2019-09-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Recently, there has been a surge in cognition research using non-avian reptile systems. As a diverse group of animals, non-avian reptiles (turtles, the tuatara, crocodilians, and squamates - lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids) are good model systems for answering questions related to cognitive ecology; from the role of the environment in impacting brain, behaviour and learning, to how social and [...]
Experimentally altered rainfall regimes and host root traits affect grassland arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities
Published: 2019-07-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Plant Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Future climate scenarios predict changes in rainfall regimes. These changes are expected to affect plants via effects on the expression of root traits associated with water and nutrient uptake. Associated microorganisms may also respond to these new precipitation regimes, either directly in response to changes in the soil environment or indirectly in response to altered root trait expression. We [...]
Pet or pest? Stable isotope methods for the early detection of invasive alien species
Published: 2019-06-28
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The illegal pet trade facilitates the global dispersal of invasive alien species (IAS), providing opportunities for new pests to establish in novel recipient environments. Despite the increasing threat of IAS to the environment and economy, biosecurity efforts often lack suitable, scientifically-based methods to make effective management decisions; such as identifying an established IAS [...]
Communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition
Published: 2019-06-21
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mammals living in more complex social groups typically have large brains for their body size and many researchers have proposed that the primary driver of the increase in brain size through primate and hominin evolution are the selection pressures associated with sociality. Many mammals, and especially primates, use flexible signals that show a high degree of voluntary control and these signals [...]
New research frameworks in the study of chimpanzee and gorilla sociality and communication
Published: 2019-06-18
Subjects: Biology, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences
Group size in primates is strongly correlated with brain size, but exactly what makes larger groups more ‘socially complex’ than smaller groups is still poorly understood. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) are among our closest living relatives and are excellent model species to investigate patterns of sociality and social complexity in primates, and to inform models of [...]
The ‘Holy Grail’ in Phylogenetic Reconstruction: Seeing the Forest for the Trees?
Published: 2019-06-17
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Systematic/macroevolutionary biology has dedicated much of the past 50 years of its energy and resources in an effort to resolve definitively the one true ‘tree of life’ and to explain materially its cause. But, no matter the quantity/quality of data, experimentation, and analysis, the effort is hampered by persistent and ever-accumulating contradictory observations. This may be an indication [...]
A protocol for using drones to assist monitoring of large breeding bird colonies
Published: 2019-04-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Zoology
Drones are rapidly becoming part of environmental monitoring and management applications. They provide an opportunity to improve a number of activities related to monitoring population dynamics of aggregations of wildlife. Bird surveys using drones have attracted particular attention, with a range of potential metrics able to be derived from high resolution drone imagery. Whilst a number of [...]
Steroid Receptors and Vertebrate Evolution
Published: 2019-03-29
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Considering that life on earth evolved about 3.7 billion years ago, vertebrates are young, appearing in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion about 542 to 515 million years ago. Results from sequence analyses of genomes from bacteria, yeast, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates indicate that receptors for adrenal steroids (aldosterone, cortisol), and sex steroids (estrogen, [...]
A continental measure of urbanness predicts avian response to local urbanization
Published: 2019-03-26
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Urban Studies and Planning
Understanding species-specific relationships with their environment is essential for ecology, biogeography, and conservation biology. Moreover, understanding how these relationships change with spatial scale is critical to mitigating potential threats to biodiversity. But methods which measure inter-specific variation in responses to environmental parameters, generalizable across multiple spatial [...]
Steroid Receptors and Vertebrate Evolution
Published: 2019-01-25
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Considering that life on earth evolved about 3.7 billion years ago, vertebrates are young, appearing in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion about 542 to 515 million years ago. Results from sequence analyses of genomes from bacteria, yeast, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates indicate that receptors for adrenal steroids (aldosterone, cortisol), and sex steroids (estrogen, [...]
Developmental temperature affects phenotypic means and variability: a meta-analysis of fish data
Published: 2018-12-08
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Fishes are sensitive to their thermal environment, and face an uncertain future in a warming world. Theoretically, populations in novel environments might express greater levels of phenotypic variability to increase the chance of surviving – and eventually thriving – in the new conditions. Most research on the effect of the early thermal environment in fish species focuses on average phenotypic [...]